In this paper, the introduction of young students to the topics of Science and Engineering is summarized. Observations are based on several examples, including Massachusetts DSTE classes for 4th-grade students, the NASA Best Engineering Design Process course, and NASA Engineering in the Classroom guide. The basis of successfully integrating complex topics into the learning process of school students is to make it engaging, reasonably simple, and interactive.
The first step to bringing the audience into the process is to present a relevant and exciting problem engagingly. NASA’s Best Engineering Design Process course demonstrates how presenting the audience with the idea of bringing a satellite to the Moon can lead to introducing deeper problems associated with the engineering side of the idea. Breaking the topic into small parts and addressing them gradually opens the way to introduce game elements into the learning process. Including elements of competition, necessary teamwork, and providing interactivity keeps the students engaged in solving the issues they are presented with. Letting the students define their group’s roles allows them to use the relevant skills they already have more effectively. For example, the Massachusetts DSTE Motion Science lessons show how students with better communication skills took on a role of a reporter, while some quickly got to constructing the prototyping the designs based on previous collective brainstorming.
Providing interactivity, like building a satellite model in NASA’s Best Engineering Design Process course, introduces the idea of an engineering process. Including comprehensive visual data like slides and animations additionally diversifies the learning experience.
Sharing and discussing opinions within the group, proposing solutions and approaches, and repeated application and testing of the results help to keep the audience motivated and teach them essential soft skills in combination with practical technical and design knowledge. It is important to introduce these interactive and engaging approaches into the learning process, starting from the school level, to bring as many young talents into the STEM industry as possible.