Intel, schools hoping to lure more students into science and engineering

“It’s got to be a whole community that is saying math is important, but not just for the sake of learning math,” Fisher-Ives said. “You’ve got to see where it’s used.”

Fisher-Ives said RoboRAVE International, which he co-founded, is growing every year. More students would be drawn to science, he said, if they did more hands-on projects, worked in teams, and competed.

“The book work and tests have a place, but we’ve lost that approach of engaging kids in a high-energy, sports-like environment for academics,” he said. “A human being doesn’t just walk up and start doing math and science and just get this instant love for it. It takes some work.”

Even students who enter college planning to pursue a STEM career are struggling, with about 40 percent leaving their major. Contreras said this is partly because the first few years are grueling and the “fun” aspects of engineering—where students get to create things—don’t come until later.

That’s where building a better shoe rack comes in. This summer, Intel is running a six-week program for college students who are in their first two years of a STEM degree. Students develop apps and products, meet with professionals, and build robotics.

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Vanessa Putnam, who has finished her freshman year as a chemical engineering student at New Mexico State University, said she is “getting inspired to be an engineer” through the program.

“It shows you that it’s fun and sociable and it’s a people world, not just a math and science world,” Putnam said.

The Intel program targets students who are already interested in engineering and might just need an extra reason to stick with it. But Matt Nyman worries about those who are turned off to science as children.

Nyman, a University of New Mexico professor, teaches a course for students pursuing a degree in elementary education who want to brush up on their science content knowledge. He also works with teachers in Bernalillo Public Schools, helping them improve the way they teach science and integrate it into other subjects.

Nyman said teachers are told to focus on math and reading—the subjects that are tested and used to measure school performance—to the detriment of non-tested subjects like science.

“Talking with teachers, they have no time to teach science,” Nyman said.

A survey of eighth-grade science teachers, released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found that 27 percent reported that their students did hands-on experiments “once or twice a month” or less.

Even successful students are critical of the system. Elisabeth Burton, who will be a junior next year at Rio Rancho High School, won distinction at this year’s national Intel Science and Engineering Fair.

She attributes her love of science to her parents and said many of her peers have been turned off to the subject. She said that’s because they learn science as facts, rather than a process of answering questions.

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