I recently came across an interesting publication that looks at patterns in STEM education and it provides some surprising insights into students’ interests in STEM education and career pathways.
The report Where are the STEM Students is jointly published by myCollege Options and STEMconnector. It profiles the national high school student population (by graduation year) including more than one million students interested in STEM careers. The element of the report I found most interesting details the national trends in STEM among female and under-represented minority students.
The study results indicate that female interest in Engineering increased after a significant dip between 2001 and 2005 but that it seems to have leveled out at about 3% of the high school population for the 2012 to 2016 graduating classes. Female interest in Technology showed a similar drop beginning in 2001 but that drop lasted much longer and the numbers did not begin increasing again until the graduating class of 2013! And despite this increase, the percentage of female students indicating an interest in careers in Technology remains below 2%.
The results for under-represented minority students are very mixed and somewhat surprising. According to the study, since the graduating class of 2000, African American student interest in all STEM disciplines has dropped by nearly 30%. After reaching a high of just over 28% in 2001, African American student interest began a significant downward trend, bottoming out in 2004. Despite a bumpy trajectory since then, the numbers have never really recovered beyond 22%. While African American students’ interest in Engineering continues to plummet, interest in Technology is showing significant improvement and is now trending toward its previous (2000) high of 10%.
Reported interest in STEM by Hispanic students also bottomed out at 22% with the graduating class of 2004. Interest among Hispanic students, however, seems to be trending upward despite another minor dip for 2009 with 27% of students graduating in 2016 expressing interest in STEM courses and careers. (The report did not include the discipline-based results for Hispanic students.)
Interest in Engineering remains highest among American Indian students, with the graduating class of 2016 reaching an all time high of 17%. And despite a dip that reached bottom (4%) with the 2010 and 2011 graduating class, student interest in Technology is also trending steadily upward, reaching between 9% and 10% among the 2016 graduating class.
Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director

According to the Harvard Business Review and reported in the New York Times data science is “the sexiest job in the 21st century.” Experts expect that this hot new field promises to revolutionize industries from business to government, health care to academia.
According to Rachel Schutt, a research scientist at Johnson Research Labs who taught an introduction to data science course at Columbia, a data scientist is “a hybrid computer scientist software engineer statistician.”
The exciting news for CS educators is that is data science offers that exciting blend of CS with real-world problems to be solved in medicine, social media, business — basically everything. Universities are busy creating courses and programs to fill the growing demand. It is estimated that there will be almost half a million jobs in five years, and a shortage of up to 190,000 qualified data scientists. In addition, 1.5 million executives and support staff who have an understanding of data will be needed.
Want to explore the concepts a bit yourself or invite students to take a test drive? Check out the free online course Introduction to Data Science, offered by the University of Washington.
Pat Phillips, Editor
CSTA Voice

Once again, my family has come through just in time for another blog posting. This past weekend, we were able to celebrate my grandfather’s 97th birthday. It was a momentous occasion- more than 40 family members there to celebrate with him, including his 90 year old sister! My grandparents have 9 children, most of which are within driving distance to visit.
About a week before the event, I received a message from my aunt who lives many states away wondering if I might be able to help them FaceTime with my grandfather during the party. Their 12 year old grandson had taught them how to do it, and they thought since I worked in computers, I could be the one to help them figure it out on the other end. They could then have their whole crew of 8 grandkids there to celebrate alongside the real festivities.
So the time comes for us to connect- and success! We put the computer in front of grandpa, and the Colorado crew begins to give him their well-wishes, one by one popping up in front of the camera. All the while, grandpa (and his sister) looks perplexingly at the screen. We encourage him to wave and talk to them, which is met with scoffs and quizzical glances, followed by some half-hearted waves. (as seen in the photo below).

We asked grandpa quite a few times if he realized what was going on and he still thinks he was just watching a pre-recorded video of everyone saying hello. For a man who has seen so many inventions in his life, from not even having electricity to being able to video chat with someone 1,000 miles away, that’s quite a jump for someone to make.
However, the point that we are missing is that this all happened because of a 12 year old boy. I certainly would not have thought to set this up. I’m in the generation that emails to communicate. But this is how a 12 year old communicates with everyone. His friends, family. It just comes naturally. There are no technology boundaries for him. It would have never occurred to him that video chatting with a 97 year old might be out of the question.
These kids that are born as digital natives are going to be the ones who shape our future. Technology opens up a world of opportunities to them. This is the generation that is finally realizing technology is a tool they need for survival. So what is it, that when we are 97, these kids will have developed that we will no longer be able to understand or comprehend could actually be happening? Is there a point where we will shut ourselves off to the possibility of technological advances? Longing for days of simpler cell phones, having to do math in our heads instead of having it easily calculated for us on a computer, or going to a physical store to purchase our music in hopes that the new album has not sold out. I can honestly say, I hope not. Most technology is developed to fill a need. As times change, needs change. I gladly commit my technological future into the hands of the digital natives and cannot wait to see what comes of it.
Mindy Hart
At-Large Representative

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the dearth of computer scientists in the workforce, and the corollary, the need to teach computer science to help fill that shortage. At the same time, a lot of people argue that software engineering (design) is being outsourced to India (and other places), so the real picture can be rather confusing. A recent program on NPR, Who’s Hiring H1-B Visa Workers? It’s Not Who You Might Think added more fuel to the debate. However, as a K8 computer science teacher, my impetus for teaching CS, is not about long term career opportunities, but about the actual power of computing and its impact on society.
My experience last December at the Global Random Hacks of Kindness event, brought the idea into focus, when I developed an app called Empowering Girls with Trinity College student, Pauline Lake, for the World Bank as part of the Sanitation Hackathon. The goal of the hackathon was to encourage “citizen-designed and technology-enabled solutions to sanitation challenges in the developing world.” This event was not about landing a job. It was about helping people. I also did not know at the time, that there were other computer programmers from around the world, who would be developing their own solutions as well.
Our app was the direct result of the “Sanitation + girls = education + empowerment” problem that was posted to the Sanitation Hackathon site. The problem called for a text-based app that could be used to track girls’ attendance in Cameroon schools, before and after gender-friendly facilities were introduced into these schools. As both educators and females, Pauline and I found that the “Sanitation + girls = education + empowerment” problem hit close to home. Also, with previous experience using mobile app creation using App Inventor, we felt that we could use our expertise to make a useful app to address the sanitation problem in Cameroon. Thus our app, Empowering Girls, was born.
The objective of our app is to help determine the impact of an NGO by tracking girls’ attendance in conjunction with the implementation of a school-based health education program, improved girl-friendly sanitation facilities, and the introduction of proper feminine hygiene products. By empowering the girls at the local schools to record their own attendance, the app would help the NGO evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions.
Sadly, many girls in developing countries do not get a proper education. According to a 2005 report from UNICEF, Sanitation: The Challenge, 1 in 10 school-age African girls drop out of school when they enter adolescence or miss school approximately a week a month because of poor sanitation facilities in their school.
The lack of proper sanitation facilities and timely health and hygiene education has been shown to play a significant role in the attendance rate for young girls. It has been theorized that with proper mitigation attendance rates would rise, thus helping girls get the education they deserve.
I had no idea, when I created Empowering Girls last December, that the app would become part of a bigger project, the Sanitation Hackathon App Challenge. Over 30 apps were developed and submitted to the World Bank for review. On March 22, the World Bank announced the finalists for the Sanitation Hackathon App Challenge. Much to my surprise, our app was in the top 10.
Now we wait. The Grand Prize Award winners of the Sanitation Hackathon App Challenge will be announced on April 19, on the eve of the World Bank’s Spring Meeting. In the meantime, I am thrilled to have been able to participate in such an important event. My first experience “hacking for humanity” was very inspiring. I was not looking for fame or fortune, however, I was looking to have an impact, and by participating in the global event, I did just that.
No matter how this ends, the journey is one I look forward to repeating and one I can’t wait to share with my students. Hopefully they will walk away from their first Random Hacks of Kindness event with the same feeling of accomplishment, because I want more than anything for my students to believe they can make a difference.
For additional information about the finalists and to watch the videos check out:
http://sanitation.hackathome.com/
Patrice Gans
CSTA K-8 Task Force Chair

Ayna Agarwal and Ellora Israni, Stanford University computer science students who refer to themselves as “good girls gone geek,” are the founders of she++.
She++ is a catchy title, exciting challenge, and clever ideas for engaging more women in CS. On the website (http://sheplusplus.stanford.edu) you will find information about an upcoming second conference, several interesting videos, several links to classroom resources, news of a recently released documentary and — most interesting to me — opportunities for one-on-one mentorships between high school girls and undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates majoring in CS or related technical fields. According to Ayna and Ellora in the “Word from the Founders” video, role models were the keys to their transformation into ‘femgineers.’ Perhaps some of your students who would value this opportunity; maybe some of your former students would be perfect mentors.
Shee++: the Documentary, with inspirational pieces on Silicon Valley’s unsung heroes, was written and directed by Ayna and Ellora. The Documentary “encourages the future CEOs, the innovative engineers, the techies and the fuzzies, the sisters, cousins, and daughters, to break away from the stereotype into a revolutionary field. As technology is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, all demographics must harness new ideas to transform and empower technology.” They invite girls to think of what more ‘femgineers’ could do. Watch the documentary trailer; Jocelyn Goldfein, Director of Engineering, Facebook, cites the numbers that reflect a dire need for more computer scientists and an invitation to grab the opportunity for a “Rosie the Riveter” moment.
Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice