Engineering for Kids featured in Huffington Post

Dori Roberts, founder of Engineering for Kids, recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post's Blog online. She spoke about the importance of STEM education, her history in teaching, and her dedication to inspiring young adults to explore careers in engineering. Roberts cites an interesting study by the Intel Corporation which reports that 63% of teens have never considered a career in engineering, but 44% would if they knew more about it!

Click HERE for the full article, or begin reading below.

Creating, Tinkering, Inventing and Imagining Our Way to the Top

By: Dori Roberts

If you were to peek through the door of most preschool classrooms or observe young children playing at home, you would likely find kids creating, tinkering, inventing and imagining. Their hands would be busy and their minds would be racing a hundred miles a minute with all different types of creative possibilities: A rollercoaster using foam pipe insulation! A rocket from a plastic water bottle! A bridge from paper and tape! These kids are engineers. Most just don't know it. Yet.

I began my career as a high school technology and engineering teacher. During that time, I witnessed amazing ideas high school students developed and implemented around engineering-related challenges. I saw firsthand how students could begin to address real-world problems with their innovation. My own son, who was 6 at the time, became very interested in the students' projects. Upon searching for an after-school STEM program for him, I realized such a thing did not exist. So, I began to dream of a program that would introduce STEM concepts to young children. In 2009, I founded Engineering for Kids, which brings science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to kids ages 4 through 14 in a fun and challenging way.