Assessing the Society of Automotive Engineers' "A World in Motion II-Mobility Toy" program at the Woodridge Middle School

For the past twelve years, the United States has been faced with a steady decline in the number of students who are interested in the study of math, science and engineering. It is estimated that out of four million high school sophomores in 1977, only 750000 indicated an interest in science and engineering. This number further declined to 340000 college freshmen who declared science or engineering as a major in 1980, and only 206000 baccalaureate science and engineering degrees were awarded in 1984. Of these, only 46000 received Master degrees in 1986 and approximately 9700 Ph.D degrees were granted. The picture is even bleaker for new college entrants in this millennium. The goal of this program-"A World in Motion II (A WIM II)," which was initiated by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), is to captivate interests and motivate these students to undertake and complete science and engineering programs. A WIM II is a middle school program integrating math, science, technology and language arts. This paper presents a brief description of the five years' experiences of the A WIM II program at Woodridge Middle School, outlines the methodology and the implementation of the program and assesses the current progress of the program.