INTRODUCING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO CHEMICAL ENGINEERING KINETICS WITH A SIMPLE EXPERIMENT-BASED SMARTPHONE EDUCATION APPLICATION

摘要

Nationwide, the lack of gender, ethnic, and racial diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at the K 12 level is well documented. The racial and ethnic distributions of students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools reveal that the percentage of black students is steadily decreasing from 17 percent in 2003 to a projected 15% of total enrollment in 2025. After secondary school, African Americans only represent 5% of Bachelor's degree holders in architecture and engineering and 9% in computers, statistics, and mathematics. The numbers trim down even further at the doctoral level, with African Americans holding only 4% of the engineering doctorates awarded in the United States in recent years. Projections also suggest that the number of chemical engineers trained in the United States will not meet employment demands of the field. This is partly attributed to a lack of interest in engineering careers, compounded with an overall lack of gender, ethnic, and racial diversity in STEM fields, among students at the K-12 level. These projections may also be due to the fact that the current pathway from high school to college does not reliably lead to the achievement of a college degree.