Tekno: Employing Low Tech Activities For The Hi Tech Employees Of Tomorrow

Technology is a core subject at compulsory (K-9) schools in Sweden but the outcome until now has been very dependent on each teacher’s interest and priorities, especially at primary school levels. Few of the teachers at this level have had any significant amount of science or technology included in their teacher training. There is also a lack of guidance and teaching material in the K-6 schools. With the aid of the project described in this paper the participating schools and municipalities can get access to thematic visits, ideas, hands-on experiments, pedagogical support and networking. The overall objective is to secure the future supply of skilled manpower in technical and engineering positions in the region. We aim to go beyond the traditional external contacts with science and technology at primary school level such as visiting science centers and presentations by researchers. The project prioritizes: o spending more time in the classroom with the pupils – at least one week per class, o adapting activities to each individual class; its curriculum, prerequisites and previous knowledge, o visiting local industries/businesses that makes practical use of the particular area of technology studied in the individual class, o having project managers who are themselves primary school teachers but with special interest in technology and engineering (no academics please!), o using IT as an aid in teaching; as a tool for communication, programming of gadgets, problem solving etc., o gender and equality issues e.g. by working, in most cases, with separate groups for girls and boys and let them try to solve problems with different angles of approach, o building networks among the teachers locally and regionally, and o conducting seminars and workshops with the teachers to increase confidence and knowledge (academics invited). During the first two years we have cooperated with some 70 classes and roughly 1,900 pupils in East-Central Sweden. The evaluations show that more than 95% of the teachers and pupils are very satisfied with this cooperation and would like to extend it further. P ge 9.223.1 Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright À 2004, American Society for Engineering Education Introduction This paper describes a project aiming at connecting Engineering with Education at the first levels of formal education, K-6. In short it is employing low-tech activities for the hi-tech employees of tomorrow. Consequently this project was named TekNO, which is a Swedish abbreviation for engineering technology (“teknik”) and natural sciences (“naturorientering”). The initial idea and needs had been discussed in different regional forums since the middle of the 1990s. It was forecasted in our region that the level of education (mostly in science and technology) would not be in balance with the regional structure of the industry and the employment market. Different actors such as industries, compulsory schools, upper secondary schools and universities all foresaw problems connected to technology education. Some specific facts and point of views were: o Very variable demographic situation in decades to come; large fluctuations in number of pupils and students, retirement boom among teacher cadres etc. – see figure 1. o Many teachers in primary school felt uncomfortable when it came to teaching technology and other subjects related to engineering. o Declining relative numbers of applicants to vocational and technical education in upper secondary schools. o Declining relative numbers of applicants to education in science and technology at the colleges and universities. o A tendency in media at presenting technology and technological ‘faults’ in negative connections (e.g. accidents, natural disasters, pollution, unemployment or conflicts). 0 20 000 40 000 60 000 80 000 100 000 120 000 140 000 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 C it iz en s Upper Secondary schools 300 000 Primary and Secondary schools 1 050 000 Adult education 230 000 Universities 290 000