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In the USA, students of all races and socio- economic backgrounds find math and science schoolwork boring. As a result, only half of US fourth-grade students achieve proficiency in math and science. The level of achievement decreases as students progress in the education system. At the eighth-grade level approximatly 10% achieve the ‘advanced’ international benchmark in science and 7% in math. Most students do not like school because they do not see the relationship between the classroom science and math and their daily life experiences and everyday interactions with technology; therefore, students do not work hard and do not do well in school, leading to a vicious cycle of low motivation–low achievement and vice versa.
Exposing elementary-school students to engineering through simplified hands-on experiments is thus one of the better ways to improve their performance in math and science and excite them about pursuing technical careers.
This site presents the K-12 outreach activities of Professor Iskander and his students. These activities were done in collaboration with Prof. Vikram Kapila (ME), the late Dr. Noel Kriftcher, and Mr. Ben Esner. All activities are organized through Tandon Center for K-12 STEM Education.
