Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Christine M. Cunningham, founder and director of Engineering is Elementary.

Not long ago, engineering was an academic subject mainly reserved for college students. But as states put new science standards in place, many elementary teachers face the expectation that their students must learn engineering concepts and skills. Can you really teach engineering to very young students? I’ve been working in the field of K-12 engineering for more than a decade; based on my own research and that of others, the answer is a resounding yes.  I’ll be talking about this today at 3:30 at the NSTA National Conference on Science Education in Nashville (Davidson A1, Music City Center). Here’s a sneak preview of my presentation.

Put an elementary curriculum developer alone in a room with the CEO of a start-up. You might think they won’t have much to talk about. Actually, launching a curriculum for kids is a lot like launching a dot.com. The most important thing is to listen to your customers.

That’s one insight I took away from the meetings I’ve been attending this past winter for a new National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative called i-Corps-L. The “i” stands for “innovation,” and the “L” stands for “learning.”