Preparing Urban Secondary School Students for Entry into Engineering and Technology Programs

Minority students enter engineering and technology fields at a rate far lower than their proportion of the general population. This has been attributed, in many cases, to these students not mastering the logical thought processes, and basic mathematical skills, associated with a solid background in math and science. Too many middle school and high school students believe that basic math and science skills do not relate to them in any real way. The authors have had the opportunity to work with small groups of students from a large urban school system. The goal was to design study programs focused on topics of interest to the students. The students are shown applications of math and science principles in a manner that helps them connect with the real world uses for the basic skills which they previously viewed as unimportant. This paper discussed some of the approaches used and measures of their success