on water, you have talked so much about organics, the next step before looking for life. we have a mission that searches for organics, possibly signs of life with a drill. what is the plan in the u.s. and what is the next mission that you think we need before we go with humans? >> bernard, thank you. jim green will be talking about the whole program architecture this afternoon. he is the plantry division directorment i'm just a mars science geek. good question. that mission is the leap to the subsurface we've all been waiting for ever since i was on viking as an intern. to get below the depth where the ionizing radiation will modify the chemistry or at least we think that depth and by sampling that stuff with a very powerful set of instruments, pastel payload in germany, we will look

for organics for the first time directly in the context of the samples. exo mar sincere a key step beyond everything i showed you. the discovery potential of exo mars in 18, the mission with russia and other partners is critical as will be the mars 20 rover. it's valid. we're not done. robotic programs have to keep going beyond maven and insight, heat flow background on mars. there's the exo mars mission on 16. there's our mars 20 rover and then there's the 20s open to all the young stem people here. excellent point. we're thrilled to have the partnership we have with this next generation. subsurface.

so we want to go, you know -- i'm not six feet. bernard's mission and isa's mission will get us there. folks, science lives. thank you. up next, a discussion on how science, technology and math is important to the space program. this is also a discussion on mars exploration. it's an hour. >> the key note and first panel this morning was enlightening to me. we're going to leverage and continue with that discussion. the way i wanted to run this panel is i'm going to give a bio

on each one of the panelists and let them go through discussions and charts that they have. then we really are very willing to answer any questions they have. please be thinking of questions you have as we're starting through this. the first thing i should say is one of the panelists, or actually the moderator, didn't make it for a couple of reasons. one was sick and the other wasn't. randy sweet was kind enough to jump in for us today. james brown, sitting to my left, is executive director of the stem education coalition. this is an alliance of more than 500 business, professional and educational organizations and it works to raise awareness in congress, the administration and other organizations about the critical role that stem education plays in enabling the

u.s. to remain the economicoloi. i'm happy to see stem is getting more and more attention as we go on. prior to joining the coalition, james was an assistant director for advocacy of the american chemical society, nuclear engineer. previously worked as a legislative aid for doc hastings of washington, director of policy and development at the consumer energy council of america and began his career with newport news ship building, working on aircraft carrier construction. thanks. i might have flown off a couple of those carriers you worked on. probably not. >> good chance. >> i probably threw off the ones that were there before you were. masters from penn state, both in

nuclear engineering, and holds an mba from george washington university. with that, james -- >> thank you. thank you, kent. so it's a pleasure to be here and to speak to an audience like this. it's also relatively tough to speak to an audience about space issues when you have so many distinguished people like buzz aldrin and others in the audience. it's definitely an honor. i'm always surprised by the breadth of stem education and different things that perfect vad our society. i like to think about one stat that summarizes our particular challenge quite well. a poll was done in 2011 by the harris group that polled parents about issues relating to stem education and they found that roughly 93% of parents considered stem should be a priority within the school system. but that only about 49% thought

it was a challenge -- i mean was a priority in the school system. that is a challenge, if you really think about it. everybody recognizes the importance of the stem projects, whether it's to space, technology or future of computing or any other technological or scientific endeavor we know from our history will lead to the future of the country. but we have yet to make the kinds of changes in our education system to really prioritize those subjects. certainly if we're going to get to mars we need to draw from every part of our talent spectrum to get there. it's going to take smart engineers, smart astronauts. it's going to take people who can build the equipment that will get us there. it's going to take welders, people of every background to be able to do that. but the other poll i'm quite fond of -- this is a poll from several years ago. 68% of parents think their kids are in the top third of their

class. if you think about that, that sort of illustrates the first statistic quite well. how to build a competitive workforce that can support the kinds of grand national missions like going to another planet, i think about three things. one is we need to get our federal house in order. as we all know, we're dealing with the political gridlock of perhaps a century or more. and that is going to have a high water mark. and i hope it will recede. it will get to working on challenges like improving our education system at a national level. and so the united states invests about $3 billion in stem education programs, scattered across some 250 programs. that, in itself, is a challenge. i know people in the nasa family are dealing with issues of efficiency and trying to get the most out of federal investments. we have to make sure those investments are well spent and they're making the kinds of big

bets towards improving education. the other thing the states are dealing with what are called the common core standards in math and science. that is an interesting opportunity for us to improve math and science education across the board. of those standards developed by the states. there are lots of collaborations between states and one another. and it would be nice if, when my daughter, who is 4 1/2, is in the seventh grade and we decided to move from the district of columbia to the state of washington or somewhere else that we wouldn't have to repeat algebra. that's another positive thing that's moving in the right direction. if you think about the workforce that underlies the stem fields it's a little known fact that roughly 50% of that workforce is not going to require a four-year degree to enter that workforce. when you think about stem education, at least in the minds of policy makers in this town, most of the time they're thinking about the rocket scientists. they're thinking about people

who are going to study in graduate school and who are going to measure their productivity by things like patents and intellectual property and other things. half the jobs right now that are available in the stem fields don't require a four-year degree. technicians, auto mechanics and everybody uses software these days. even if you're going to work at the most basic level in the stem field, building something in an advanced facility you're going to need a background. those are three important trends that underlie the challenges of getting to mars, of improving our health care, of dealing with every other major challenge our country faces. >> great. thank you. you know, i already have a question for you, james. it makes a lot of sense, it's important to improve our education facilities, quality of education. what about the other side of how do you incentivize these children to want to go into the stem fields? is that a big piece of it as

well? >> you ask the 93% of parents if it's a priority, most of them -- can we go to the next slide? so, one of the stats that you'll see is that most of the parents get that stem is where the jobs are. and i think if you look at the pipeline of students going into those fields, what you'll find is the parents see the connection between getting a good stem education and jobs, but there are lots of parts of our society that are being left out of this. if you look at, for example, the stem workforce, african-americans are 11% of the population, but only 3% of the stem workforce. and the same is true for hispanics. it's also true for certain fields for women. that's one of the challenges in terms of how do we expand that pipeline and how do we really get at that challenge? it's not just good policies and education, so they have good tests and you have good curriculum and well-trained

teachers. the kids can see the examples of science and technology in society if they have mentors in their families, if they have good role models. and i think you're starting to see that emerge in the computing fields. look at the popularity of the cosmo series. that is really getting attention. it's not often that you have a face like his in the big face of technology and enterprise. >> thank you. the next panelist is julie van kleek, aero jet rocketdime. technology development and product development programs. miss van kleek joined aero jet in 1981 and was appointed to her position in 2013. space and launch business unit and the space program's

organization for aero jet. from 2004 to 2005, she was executive director for atlas programs. from 2001 to 2004, she served as executive director space systems business development responsible for strategic direction, investments and growth of aero jet space propulsion business. from mid 1999 to october 2001, she managed a multinational project during which she interfaced extensively in affiliated government agencies. miss van kleek earned her bachelor of science degree from the university of california and has extensive hands-on experience in rocket research and development, liquid rocket, system design, development and testing. gosh, there's a lot of great stuff here. she also is a chairperson of the

european space propulsion board of directors. so, anyway, i guess to summarize this, and in julie's own words, she truly is a rocket scientist. so, julie? >> i used to be. i'm going to go over here. can i have the first slide, please? i think that's the last slide. isn't it? oh, well. what i'm going to talk about is actually the -- you know, going to mars and how that affects u.s. competitiveness. and i'm going to do that from the standpoint of being a rocket company. as i start this out, let me talk about what competitiveness is. i'm sure everybody has a different idea of what that means, if you look at definitions. it's the ability to sell things into a market relative to others. and if you think about the u.s., i would say that, you know,

we're very competitive. many people would say we're very competitive worldwide. i think a lot of that has been because we've been technical leaders, you know, and pushed the envelope in a number of things, which is a part of, you know, the american spirit. you know, as you get more of an international marketplace, you know, that's still very important. but the other way for competitiveness is how do you maintain, you know, being the best value or cost effective? and that, you know, speaking from being a rocket scientist, we've always pushed the envelope, but only in the last, you know, ten years has being more cost competitive really come into, you know, our vernacular. we were always like can you really do it? now space is becoming everybody's life. it's becoming more of an international commercial marketplace. so now it's how do we become competitive? so you look at this and you say, okay, humans to mars. does that have an affect on american competitiveness? and i would say it absolutely

does. you know, if i look at what makes you competitive, what makes, you know, many of our aerospace companies competitive, it's do we have the technology? are we going to, you know, push the envelope and sell those things and provide those things that no one else has? then do we have products that meet certain needs? and then do we have the workforce that can keep all that going and keep, you know, making ourselves more competitive, and keeping this a sustainable business? so i would say with, you know, trying to get to mars, we're going to attack every single one of those things. and i think it's -- you know, could bring great value to this country. next slide, please? you've seen this slide before. you saw it earlier. i think both mr. bolden as well as the past panel used it. and if you look at it, it's showing -- charting a course to mars. and some people say we're not going to mars until 2030. i would say we're going to be going to -- we're building the

infrastructure, the workforce, the products to take us to mars and that will be ongoing for the next 15 to 20 years. and it's necessary because this is a very difficult thing to do, but along the way, we're going to be driving competitiveness into the people and the companies within this country. and, likely, worldwide. you know, if you look at -- reflect on this slide, we're going to see some of the basic building blocks for this, the s.i.s. and orion system. the most powerful rocket ever built. orion will be a very special crew capsule that will be able to do many kinds of missions. in developing this infrastructure we've had to face technological challenges we haven't had to do before. in that, we will expand capabilities of our workforce. once we have these products, you know, we've moved from just pushing the state of the art. now we have products to sell to other applications.

talking about modularity and using things. if you look at where we're at in this country, we're not where we were during apollo, just trying to achieve a very specific goal. here, we're looking at sustainability. here, we're dealing with constrained budgets and with those things we drive the need to look at the problem differently. we can't just spend money to go achieve a singular goal. we live in a budget-constrained environment. every investment we make, furthering science, furthering technology is very important. we want to be doing that in a way that leaves us with products that can be used elsewhere, making good on that investment. and that's the thing that this budget constraint environment is doing, is putting us all in that environment of having to think about how do i -- how do we create architectures, create products? not just achieve a very difficult thing but also can be useful in other ways.

to me, that underscores the definition of being competitive. next slide, please. okay. mars is hard. okay. mars is -- you've heard, you know, many of the different challenges. it's pretty exciting when you think about him trying to attack all those different things, you know, with the amount of resources he has been allocated. it also gives you a perspective of what we're facing to do this. as we, you know, attack each of those different technologies in the areas of, you know, transportation and for us that means propulsion. rocket company. but light support and the landing. we're going to overcome a number of difficult things, create new technologies and see those things result in other products we can't even imagine today. we think of the many things that came out of the apollo program and space program to date. we see the cameras in our cell phones, clean water systems that are being used in mexico. you know, attacking those many

different technological hurdles will result in things that will benefit, you know, not just the mars program, but mankind and companies, you know, across the world. next slide, please. and with that, you know, this will enhance the competitiveness of companies within the u.s., as i think we were going through, putting together for this panel every dollar invested in human space flight has returned $8 to the u.s. economy. i would imagine we would see a similar type of return. you know, not just going to mars but on our journey to mars, as we move through, you know, getting beyond earth alliance and on to mars in the 2030s. next slide, please. and then i bring it to home. i work for a rocket company. we heard a little bit about solar electric propulsion. we had some questions about that, you know, with the last

panel. and, you know, to me this is a product that, you know, solar electric propulsion, the reason it's important, it's much, much more efficient, if you can use it for a certain application, much more efficient than commercial. that means you carry much less propellant. if you look at where you're at today, you're using solar electric propulsion in some of our -- you know, in our satellites, both government satellites as well as commercial. the commercial world has really jumped on board. you see a number of different satellite architectures being upgraded to go partial or all electric. that's because the economics are good. you know, the place of solar electric propulsion in the pursuit of mars is to develop the higher power systems and to develop those infrastructures such as solar electric tugs that were in the last panel we talked about barges. think about barges in space, to actually move things around. these will be far more cost

effective than doing this with chemical propulsion. now you don't have to lift all that propellant off the earth. you lift a much smaller portion of that. you look at the types of systems that are relevant to our, you know, pursuit of mars, we'll be driving the power up, the capability of solar rays, propulsion systems and power systems and what we'll see is those migrate into the commercial satellite world in the next generation or the generation after that in their buses. and so truly enhancing, by developing this, we'll enhance the competitiveness, you know, the propulsion industry and the commercial satellite industry, in general. so, you know, i just tried to give you a snapshot of some of the key things that i think can come from this. i've tried to bring it home to what it means to a particular company like ours in propulsion. and i look at all the things that we're going to see today.

i look and say we're finally making science fiction real and i really am thankful to be part of it. thank you. >> thank you, julie. so the panelist on the end here is randy sweet. in his defense, until about seven minutes ago, he didn't even know he was on this panel. so, he was kind enough to jump in when i heard randy was in the area, i thought, randy will be great. i've had the benefit of getting to work with him. randy has been with lockheed martin over 30 years, director of their civil space and business development. he has a heritage back in the shuttle program. matter of fact, he was an orbital test conductor. when the shuttle is being processed and getting ready to fly, when the astronauts climb in the vehicle, they are working with otc, orbital test

conductor, if you will. randy, with that, the floor is yours. >> thanks, kent. obviously, i don't have any prepared remarks. but i would like to talk a little about my perspective of -- first, i'll talk about stem here a little bit. we obviously, on the orion program, we do a lot of work in the area of stem, both domestically and internationally. i have to say we had an international conference ten years ago with james cameron was one of the keynote speakers and one of the things he told us, and we've kind of built upon this, is you guys should take a look at the entertainment industry and look at what they do. and even use the word avatar. this was way back before the movie "avatar." basically what we find in stem -- we're missing this from the shuttle days. kent, you know this well. we would send crews out to events, flight crews out.

and the students would ask lots of questions about what it's like to fly and what it feels like and some of those things. that's certainly a motivator for stem, for students. the other one is, you know, near-term successes and events. we're starting to make a lot of progress on orion. we have the flight test coming up. we have lots of events where we'll test a heat shield or transport something and it's amazing. social media just blows up. there's a lot of interest out there when we talk about mars. it's just incredible. but in a lot of cases, conferences like this, we're essentially talking to a fairly small community within ourselves. so it's really good that we have organizations like explore mars that are broadcasting this. but i think as we get closer to flying, that we have more engagement from pop culture and the entertainment industry.

we do a lot of work with them. you'll be seeing more of that. once we get crews assigned and we start getting crews more involved in events, i think those are things that we can do to really kind of engage the stem community. we have a program we call the exploration design challenge coming up on orion where we're flying a radiation test sample. we've had a contest. i can't remember the numbers but over 100,000 students have applied. this is open internationally. we've gotten 80 countries involved. we'll be announcing the finalist at the engineering and science festival coming up here. it's gotten a lot of attention. there's a lot of interest out there. so, i think we just need to keep doing that. >> thank you so much. and so folks that have questions, please start making your way to the mikes.

to maybe put this in perspective, when guys like neil armstrong and buzz aldrin stepped on the moon, it had a phenomenal impact globally. a result of that is the huge numbers in aerospace engineering technical fields today. as a kid, i was very incentivized by that. as a result where we are today, i think, all of our companies, the average age of a worker is in the 50s. so what we've seen is that huge generation that was inspired is moving through. and so in the next ten years there will be a large exxoexodue given a lot of responsibility. none of the old timers will be left. there's a big gap in experience.

and so do we think something like going to mars, putting humans on mars can kind of reset that kind of excitement? i don't know. what do you think, james? >> i, for one, am a huge proponent of doing these kind of big things. is there anything you can propose that would be bigger in science and technology than to put a person on mars and bring them back? i would ask this question slightly differently. i would say i'm sure in 1956 there were people sitting around saying, why on earth are we wasting our time about going to the moon? what's in it for us? what's the commercial value of that? what are the -- why will anybody care? but i don't think anybody looks back on that and doesn't think it was, number one, a good investment of federal dollars and of time and people and energy. and i think we would look back

on going to mars the same way. because i think it's such a uniting force to try to do something enormous like that. and i also think the interesting dimension to that debate about space exploration now is that you have a viable commercial sector as well. so, you know, you can look at it as an inspiration for kids, you can also look at it as a very american thing where you'll attract pruentrepreneurs who th of making fame and fortune off of it as well, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. >> do we have a question out here? >> mike goddard, space flight center. in my outreach to high schools, especially those that aren't located near nasa centers or in metropolitan areas, i'm finding that they really don't have any awareness of what the country is doing in space exploration. more significantly, their

funding for stem is such a small percentage of that for other activities like athletics, for example. in fact, at this one high school they actually had to have a bake sale or something to have a robotics competition and they didn't get enough money, so they didn't have it. yet they've got this huge football field, you know. and so i guess my question is, how do we encourage -- not only encourage the students to get interested -- in lieu of an active exploration, how do we bring that apollo-like interest in stem that apollo kind of generated on autopilot? it kind of just happened. young students wanted to get involved in engineering and science and math. we don't have that at this time, at least not that i'm aware of. so how do we get them involved

in -- or interested in pursuing those things with a visibility that they see with the sports on tv and some of the other aspects of our society that aren't -- you know, that are more visible than the space program? >> so i'll start to answer that. i think there's two halves to the equation. one of the keys in getting more kids interested in the stem fields and getting them in those types of careers is very -- very sobering. and that is we have to have policy changes that will make the kinds of things happen in the classroom and outside the classroom that will really make a difference. and so when i hear stories about schools that have tried to do these things on their own and have struggled it's not the first time i've heard that story. and i would say we do a very good job in our best high

schools in the most affluent neighborhoods of dealing with the stem subject. when you watch a media report, it's a lot of times kids in white lab coats going to college before they were involved in the after-school program or the engineering competition or other things, already in that direction and we're accelerating them in that direction. there's another category of stories that aren't being told as much about the struggling schools that also see that these subjects are important, see the jobs, the connections to the future but either don't have the resources, the expertise or the critical mass to make all that happen. that's where the policy change that i started talking about at the beginning is going to have the biggest bang for its buck, in those schools that will achieve that. the other half of the equation is the inspirational piece. if a child is properly educated and has all of the right supports in school but they never see the other end of the equation, they never see the grand design that they can fit into, or they never have the

mentorship experience that they can fit into, then that's also a weak link. an interesting part of this is we're only starting to understand how to hook people from outside this sort of traditional stem, college-bound population into the stem fields. i think you can see this in the resonance of the astronauts of color and women, too, and how young women relate to female astronauts. and i think that is something that we have to take into account when we're thinking about these things as well. i would also offer a challenge to the space industry. so if i had a meeting with james cameron, i would be thinking to myself, i wonder if we could get a number of space companies together and get a movie done about going to mars. and not, you know -- i know we've had movies like this before, but wouldn't it be nice to have one every so often so that people didn't look at val kilmer going to mars and say, i don't even know who that is, right? >> to follow up on that, you

know, as i mentioned earlier, we do the best we can with stem,g given the budgets that we have. i think nasa does a great job of it. my fellow companies do a great job. we're certainly out there, doing everything that we can. as i said, i think we need to leverage a few things. one is upcoming events that we have that we all need to take advantage of, try to get that out there and get the top tier media involved so it really is a topic of discussion on the -- all the talk shows and such. the other is leveraging pop culture. and it's amazing when you look at role models of these students, especially the k through 12, they really look at the entertainment industry. and it's really amazing, the leverage you can get out of that. and i still say astronauts are a big motivator for young kids. and we need to do more of that.

we're talking to the folks trying to get crews assigned early and it's really tremendous, you know, the impact that you can have when you bring their role models into play. >> thanks. did we answer your question? >> yes. how important do you all feel that cross energy and cross disciplinary synergy between green technology, medical technology is in helping american competitiveness? it seems to me the way to get more involvement, more money is to understand that there's a very deep synergy between all these fields and how do we

organize to help maximize that any thoughts on that? >> great question. >> the first thing i would say, it's a relatively new concept. it's a term that we need to determine its actual components are. when policy makers think about this, it was competitiveness with india and china. but in some sense i think we're also competing against ourselves because when you talk about federal investments, really competitiveness -- when i hear that term, i think about and

doing that very well makes us competitive. are around the issue of equity. when the biggest potential gains are getting people who are not within the stem pipeline into the stem pipeline, i think about that being a huge advantage that we have as a country because we have a tradition of trying to broaden opportunity for all americans. if you believe that brain power and capability are equally distributed across all different parts of our society that's, by far, the biggest gain because if you have role model that is can inspire people from all different backgrounds that's how you'll open up that pipeline.

i don't think we understand what being more competitive in the global economy actually means and i think that's a good place to start. >> certainly as we -- create new processes with dealing with harsh environments, that brings us to have a skill we didn't have before. that's one way to enhance competitiveness, assume iing th other thing, it forces us to think of ways to make things more cost effective in a constrained environment. that, by its nature, is forcing a number of companies now to look at their manufacturing

processes, their development processes. as we talked about with stem, having a mission like this, and the many step it is takes to make this mission real, if we do our jobs right and we provide that inspiration of what this is, that will draw people, new people into our companies, you know. and that enhances by rejuvenating, and bringing a different mindset. as ken said we tend to have an older workforce right now. infusing that workforce with a number of, you know, large percentage of just out of college. that will change the face of many of these companies that do very special things right now and make them stronger for the future. >> those kinds of things that we

have to solve will cause us to all be more competitive. but one of the things that i've noticed internally, within our industry, is that now that we are converging on common goals here, you know, it's amazing how far we've come over the last few years now that we're all talking about stepping stones and the kind of missions that we need to do early to get to mars and some great ideas about predeploying contingency capabilities and support so we can actually go do these missionings unlike when miles mentioned some of the explorers in the past didn't have that ability. but one thing i've noticed in our industry, because we have this common goal that while we're still competitive we are really working closely together. and so it creates a different kind of competitiveness. and then if you take that up to a global scale, we're not going to do this mission just in the u.s. alone. this is going to be an international mission. i fully believe that.

my opinion. and so when you take what we've realized here domestically, in working together towards a common goal, i really believe we'll have a global common goal. we're starting to see that through the global exploration road map and some of the thing that is we're mapping out here with national interests, bringing their capabilities to the party here on how we get to mars. and i think that in itself will create kind of a different competitiveness than we traditionally think of. >> thank you. i think we have a question over here. >> hi. i'm elizabeth wallace. i was an assistant at a presentation he gave at a local stem -- local school in maryland recently and it was on mars. and his room was packed, standing room only. the first class was all female

students and i thought oh, this is a great trend and the second one was all male. it was like, okay. but it was really nice mix of both that were very, very interested and stayed the whole time and asked all kinds of questions. it's about maintaining that kind of inspiration. the second thing i would like to say is that when we had the apollo program and the whole country got excited, as we know, that kind of passion is missing, as we know. i think we can incentivize by like using -- just as the iss is a stepping stone to mars i think suborbital could be a stepping stone to what it's like to be an astronaut and have more astronauts in our community that are neighbors. researchers conference i gave a talk called space tourism is the new higher education. and it was an idea for

fund-raising on college campuses so that you can create your own astronaut varsity teams cross disciplinary and that you vote for and fund to people on your campus to go to space so that you can tell high -- middle school students and high school students, go to these universities that have these astronaut programs and so they can start thinking about what college they want to go to. and then those astronauts can help to form that vision faster because you'll have more people going up. suborbital space tourism is the money. we really need to help them. that should not be the barrier. why not get inspired when you're 18 in space? why wait until you're 50 and maybe can afford it?

thank thanks. >> thank you. i don't think that was a question, was it? so over here. >> very fast, i want you guys to speak to your audience tlout on the internet, please, and address this to the kids out there. why would they invest the time and energy to do the things that it would take to get into a stem profession? >> that's a great question. i was just thinking about the audience of students and classrooms that are watching this under the previous question. because i do think there are an awful lot of packed classrooms when you talk about this particular topic. you know, there are a bunch of different reasons somebody would think about the stem fields as an opportunity. if i'm wearing my hat as a parent for a minute i'll tell you it's because that's where you'll get a good job and that's where you'll be a great citizen. if i'm wearing my entrepreneur's hat i'll say that's where you can make a name for yourself nowadays.

last time i checked the best-selling app was just sold for $2 billion. so that might take an afternoon's worth of work somewhere to create that. that would be wonderful if that was my job. i would also say if you're interested in where the future is going, that's also where the future is going. in the sense that we do have sort of an interesting astronaut now. i was thinking about the movie "gravity" while you were talking and the analogy and the example that sandra bullock has in that movie. but i also think that people can see those role models more frequently now than they did ten years ago. there are lots of images in our society that can promote that kind of awareness to kids. it's not just about getting a job or doing well but doing something that's interesting and fun, which is what most kids are looking for. >> great answers. question over here?

>> my question had more to do with international competitiveness and our own space industry. where are we going to reach a point where we're not heavily reliant on heritage system for space technology? when we reach that point do you think it will make a huge difference in the rate at which we're advancing, and the direction that we take? >> so i know i'm the moderator but i'll take a quick stab at that. i think they got that one pretty right this morning earlier when they were talking. the fact is that going to mars is hard. going to mars is very expensive. and so we need to put those dollars where we'll gain the most out of them as far as new technology technologies solar propulsion is one. going to mars is very risky. so we have astronauts in orbit

today. they're literally minutes away from the earth's surface if we needed to get them home. once they've done a deorbit burn they're only six minutes away from the earth's surface. going eight days away is probably the next good step. realistically, we're going to mars. you're months and months away from getting back home if something fails and you don't have a backup, an alternative. understanding those systems is really, really critical. the other one that keeps coming up was basic chemical propulsion. it takes a lot of mass. like what julie talked about earlier, it's an area where we really now can be very competitive globally, once we develop that technology.

and it has a lot of applications that are very widespread, more so than just helping us get humans to mars. as a human, you probably don't want the human on that system, at least not for the long journey. it's kind of slow. for all the other mass, staging of equipment, orbiters and landers, it's probably a great technolog technology. >> adding to that, it's enabling to some of the architectures we're talking about when you start looking at having the ability to take everything with with you that you need, including contingencies. it's really, really hard. the mass numbers just don't add up. having the ability to predeploy things, that's what sep does for you. you have to send it way ahead of time, can you predeploy capabilities so that you don't have to necessarily take everything with you. and i think that's enabling for

some of the architectures we're talking about. not to mention it opens up commercial opportunities. and i think, you know, the u.s. does have a leadership position in some of these areas. if you look at an endeavor like mars, it's so broad. to think that we would lead every part of it would -- it's probably not practical. we would look for those things that are, you know, most aligned with where the u.s. interests are. anybody that's part of this will end up with world leadership and some aspect of it. >> do you see us relying on u.s.-made rocket engines rather than russian rocket engines any time in the near future? >> at least for the next two weeks. >> okay.

>> you look at economics in the most efficient way, to get payloads into orbit, the u.s. has a combination of rockets made right here in the u.s. some of the different engines are imported, obviously, and i'm sure you're referring to the rd 180 issue with the engines with russia. the flipside of that is what's going on on the space station with cosmonaut sbchlt s and astronauts together. it's been unaffected and if anything it helps to stabilize relationships. >> iss tremendous success has been our ability to work with international partners and that has worked out very well. we need to leverage that going forward in terms of propulsion, i fully believe that down the road in the future, we'll have a combination of foreign and u.s. provided engines. >> thanks. >> great question. >> hi.

chuck devine. the only group i'm currently a leader of is washington metro men's -- a few years back as part of the governor's workforce investment board in maryland leading a committee dealing with, among other things, getting people to come into tech fields, particularly in aerospace. some of the things i heard as part of the governor's workforce investment board, young people -- now we're not talking 10 or 12-year-olds. we're talking about 19, 20, 22-year-olds -- are now starting to avoid stem fields. for reasons such as very work/life balance, very poor management in their fields and also this is the men's person in me coming out. one of the things that's become very popular in at least the high i.q. groups is, believe it or not, home schooling.

because we don't like things that common core and we're getting better results teaching on our own than we are seeing in our schools. would anyone care to comment on this? are you doing anything to bring these kinds of problems to the attention of the people currently in the fields? >> i'll take that one. there's so many interesting dimensions to this at any given time that stem education certainly is not a monolith. when i read the opinion pages about this issue there's a constant back and forth over whether we have too many of this type of engineer, not enough of that type of scientist. i think that's healthy of the field. it's not monolithic. we don't need more of all stem graduates and we don't train them all the same. one of the skill sets that is still not really a part of the mix, that explains some of the trend you're talking about --

what you see in some fields is a relatively high amount of turnover or leaving in the field by recent college graduates. the thought that they're going to do x, y, z and find out that the field is not really that. one of the ways in which you get at that challenge is making sure those kids -- the kids most commonly that don't stay within the stem fields didn't have a person in their family that was involved in that field, they didn't have a mentorship experience, they didn't have an internship. and the next best explanation is that they didn't have the type of training and teams that has how most companies work. those are all things that are very hard to -- almost impossible to legislate. they're all social skills. and those are not things that we can expect, you know, standards or policies to address directly. i thivg the way you address them is by if you really make the stem projects a priority and

hold the people who run our schools accountable for it, we'll phil figure out how to solve those challenges the same way we'll figure out which rocket system will get us to mars if we're going to go to mars. >> thank you. you bring up a really good point. this generation is different. so, i think all of our companies are trying to understand where they're coming from. work/life balance. social media is key in how we work with the generations. the fact is that it's a much different world today than it was, you know, when buzz, sitting here, stepped foot on the moon from a country that had just come out of the depression, very difficult time we worked there.

parents are aware -- but the students not necessarily. and certainly i have a bunch of friends who are interested in stem fields because i'm one of them. i tend to associate with people like that. but i was wondering if there are some takeaways that i could -- so i could communicate, get -- generate more interest in people that might not necessarily be friends with.

following things like this on social media. i would say one of the things that would be an interesting challenge is there are an awful lot of really cool people

tweeting about science and technology issues and if i were somebody running one of these companies, who saw a really interesting project that a group of students at your high school were doing, i would want to be involved with it in social media. that's a good way to get recognition, to show your colleagues that somebody actually cares about these things. it's also a potentially good way to raise money for your projects in school. i don't know anybody who doesn't see that as an incentive to be involved in something. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. great questions. >> coming up on the next "washington journal," congressman tom cole, combating isis. and mid term elections with representative donna edwards of maryland and later our series looking at the big 10 conference continues at the ohio state university with joseph steinmets. you can join the conversation on

facebook and twitter. >> c-span's 2015 student cam competition is under way. midland high school students will award 150 prizes totally $100,000. create a five to seven-minute documentary on the topic, the three branches and you. show varying points of view and must be submitted by january 20th, 2015. go to studentcam.org. grab a camera and get started today. next, a hearing on private sector efforts to improve science, technology, engineering and math edition, otherwise known as stem. segway inventor and a panel of high school students participating in a national robotics competition program. this is a little under

subcommittee on research and technology will come to order. >> good morning. welcome to today's hearing. today's program is engaging student and stem, which you know is a very important subject. in front of you is truth and testimony disclosures for today's witnesses. and now i recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. i'm happy to call to order the first research and technology subcommittee hearing of the new year. today we learn about initiatives and science technology or mathematics in stem, education and how these companies, businesses, and organizations engage students in the important fields. a report released by the national science board in 2012 indicates that science and engineering work force historically grows faster than the total work force. although science and engineering

growth rate maintained a higher rate than the total work force the last decade has seen much lower growth. in one of the most essential aspects into keeping america the at forefront of stem education advancement and development is engaging students at a young age and keeping them interested in pursuing stem degrees and careers. as a cardio tho rasic surgeon and father of four children between ages of 9 and 20, i understand that such programs and activities are necessary to enhance america's economic growth and competitiveness. with the federal government spending nearly $3 billion across 13 federal agencies on stem education programs each year, we must ensure that government is leveraging rather than duplicating private sector stem education initiatives. our hearing today will provide a unique opportunity for our first panel of witnesses to discuss the innovative projects and programs taking place at their private sector businesses and educational institutions and for our second panel of witnesses to

discuss their personal experiences with these types of initiatives. i look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses and i would like to thank them all for participation and offering their time and insight into the private sector success in stem education. at this point, i now recognize the ranking member, gentleman from illinois for an opening statement for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman. i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. one of the reasons that i had joined this committee, when i first came into congress is because the strong interest in working to improve math and science education in this country. i'm only -- i'm one of only a dozen engineers in the house and senate. and my wife was a math major in college and unlike me, her stem training led her directly into a career in actuary. from my own family experience and what i have seen and heard from others, i'm very aware of how important it is that we do a good job of engaging and educating student at all levels

in stem fields. with the latest results we are reminded yet again the troubling statistics on the state of u.s. math and science education. u.s. k-1 student ranking in the middle of the pack in international comparisons in math and science aptitude. we see the problems, i'm constantly hearing from manufacturing companies in my district that they have a hard time finding employees who have even basic math and science skills. in higher education, we have far too few students pursuing degrees? certain stem fields to meet the needs of domestic industry. for example, less than 2.4% of college student graduate with a degree in computer science. despite tremendous demand for these skills. and that number has dropped over the last decade. our troubles start from earliest grades and are part after negative feedback cycle that we have to break.

student who aren't learning the necessary skills by the time they graduate high school are much less likely to pursue and succeed in stem fields in college. when we lose an undergraduate student from stem field we lose a scientist or engineer who could choose a career in teaching the next generation. we know these to be complex problems with no easy or one size fits all solution. that's why partnerships between the private sector, federal and state governments, colleges, universities, local school district, national labs, science museums, zoos an aquarium, aul and all types of nonprofits are nor important today than ever. u.s. still has some of the best k-12 schools, colleges, universities in the world. top student at all levels compete easily with top student from around the world. that's why i'm glad we have witnesses here today that can speak to today to types of stems and keep them engaged in stem

fields. in particular northwestern university office of stem education partnerships connects k-12 teachers and students to world class stem resources of northwestern university. in corporations in the state of illinois such as boeing, baxter, google, hewlett-packard, ibm and more. and i'm a proud graduate of northwestern in chemical engineering. today private sector and university stem engagement programs is the topic. i look forward to hearing from individuals who dedicated their careers to improving stem engagement in learning in their communities across district. across the nation. i also look forward to hearing from student who have participated in the first robotics competition. we also want to say a few words about the rules in the partnership. the federal government spent $14 billion across 14 agencyes.

it is important to put that number in perspective. less than half of that is focused at k-12 level. federal investments and k-12 education overall account for only 10% of total u.s. funding for k-12 education and stem funding is likely much less than 10%. so the federal role is limited but is also unique and necessary. the national science foundation is a single most important source of research development and testing of innovative new molds for some education. the federal government also has an unrivalled ability to leverage private sector in stem education. entrepreneurs like mr. kayman and mr. partovi did not have to start from scratch. they are smart businessmen investing in, perfecting, and expanding evidence-based ideas and programs. so while the federal government cannot begin to solve our stem

education challenges alone, we would be remiss to ignore the important role the government does play. i hope this committee will continue to exercise its oversight authority to ensure that we get the most out of our relatively small but critical federal stem education program. thank you, chairman, for calling this hearing. and witnesses for taking the time today to offer insights and experiences. and with that, i yield back. >> thank you mr. lopinski. i now recognize the chairman of the full committee, gentleman from texas, mr. smith. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, let me comment on the atmosphere i ran into when i entered the room before the hearing officially began and the gavel came down. because it was an atmosphere unlike almost any other hearing i've walked into. and the atmosphere was almost festive. people were excited because they are entering this subject. and i think we're excited also about what we're going to hear

from our witnesses today and the case of both panels. but this a subject that fascinates us, i think, and we all realize is absolutely a key to the future prosperity of this country. so it was fun to walk into that kind of an environment. mr. chairman, to achieve the innovations of tomorrow, you must better educate american students today. the federal government spends nearly $3 billion each year on signs, technology, engineering and math education activities. these programs are found primarily at national science foundation and department of education. today we will hear from leaders and experts from private sector organizations that focus on engaging students in stem education. two of them were established for this express purpose. we need to learn what is taking place outside of the federal government so that we can be sure we are not spending taxpayer dollars on dupe olympictive programs and we need to more effectively use taxpayers dollars to gain more benefit for our student and our

country. it is critical to understand what is working and thousand build on that success. leaders of the organizations and students are a pants here today are in a good place to give us good information.pants here tod are in a good place to give us good information. a good stem work force will help our prosperity but we must persuade our youth to go into science technology for these careers. great strides are made today. like institutions of rose home of technology and northwestern university. unfortunately american students still lag behind students of other nations when it comes to stem education. american students, according to one poll, ranked 26th in math and 21st in science. this is not the record of a country that expects to remain a world leader. we need to ensure that young adults have the scientific and

mathematic skills to strive and thrive in a technology-based economy. you can't have innovation without advances in technology and the stem student of the day will lead touts cutting edge technologies of tomorrow. the students participating in our second panel are proof that a stem education can prepare our next generation of scientists, engineers,antant prem entrepren leaders. >> thank you. i now recognize ms. johnson for her opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for this hearing. i would like to ask all of the student that are present to stand. i want to congratulate you. i'm truly impressed that by your leadership and your accomplishments, that you should be very proud. because you will be our leaders of tomorrow.

thank you for standing. unfortunately, too many students across the country do not have the opportunities to participate in inspiring stem activities or to receive a high quality stem education. once again, our students were just in the middle of the pack in the latest ipt national tests of science and math proficiency. add long visit just last night with the minister of education from japan. and we talked about that a lot. we can no longer depend on our top few percent to maintain the strong and vibrant economy with good high-paying jobs in our communities. our competitive edge will be lost if we do not vastly improve stem education in this country for all of our students. we know that this is a complex challenge that no entity can solve alone. there's no silver bullet. and there is a role for all the

key stake holders, public and private. today we hear from two two entrepreneurs and two leaders in stem education. i congratulate them for their important work and thank them for taking time to provide their insight to this committee today. but i also want to emphasize the importance in improving stem education. many federal stem programs, including those supported by the national science foundation, and the department of education, are making a difference in universities, community colleges, and k-12 across the nation. there are also many valuable programs being funded through other federal size agencies, such as nasa, noaa, and the department of energy. these agencies are filled with thousands of scientists and engineers who can make a difference in their own

communities for students across the country. as working stem professionals, the real life work that they do using stem is so inspiring to our students, take an astronaut to the classroom. you will see what i'm talking about. but the federal role is more than that. the national science foundation is premier stem research organization in the country. for decades, nsf has been a leader in developing a most effective and inspiring stem crick u la and programs in and out of the classroom. when the private sector invests in stem, they have proven outcomes. the national science administration more than any other organization is responsible for building that evidence base. i hope this committee will continue to exercise its responsibility to conduct oversight nsf and other age he is not is stem education

programs. today, though, i look forward to hearing from the experts on the first panel about their program. and how we measure that impact. i also look forward to hearing from the students about what initially sparked their interest in stem. and what role their teachers, parents and other mentors have played in helping them to reach their goals. i thank all of you for being here today to share this experience. i want to see the united states move from 26th to 1. when i came here over 20 years ago, we were number 18. we are going backwards. we are challenged. we got to meet that challenge. thank you. >> thank you. if there are members who wish to submit additional opening statements, your statements will be added to the record at there point. this time, i'm going to introduce our first panel of witnesses. our first witness today is mr. dean kayman.

mr. kayman is an interventer, entrepreneur, founder of for inspiration of and recognize of science and technology otherwise known as first. founder and president of decka research and development corporation. our second witness is mr. hoti patovi, he is an inventor, entrepreneur, on the founding teams of tell me, worked on facebook, drop box, and others as an investor and start-up adviser. he co-founded education nonprofit code.org. mr. partovi is a graduate of harvard. our third witness is dr. kimmie jonah. dr. jonah is a professor of learning sciences and computer science at northwestern university. he is the founder and direct over northwestern's office of stem education partnerships. dr. jonah holds ph.d from northwestern and bs in computer science and psychology from

university of wisconsin madison. our fourth witness, from my district, is dr. phil ip cornwell, vice president for academic affairs and professor of mechanical engineering at rose holeman institute in terre haute. he received his bs in mechanical engineering and ma and mba from princeton. spoken kem is limited to 5 min puts. there will be latitude given. and i now recognize mr. kayman for five minutes to present his testimony. >> this is the super bowl. the super bowl of smarts, that is. a live-changing competition. it's kids having fun. competing, working together, to dream up, design, and build robots. >> just an exhilarating feeling. you're like, i'm using power

tools. >> having the hardest fun they'll ever have. and they're becoming our next generation of engineers and innovators. first -- for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. my teachers were some of the greatest influences on my life. by challenging and trusting me, these mentors got me to understand that i could do anything that i put my mind to. first mentors are changing kids' lives everyday. professional engineers. teachers. parents. teaming up with young people, not just to build robots, but to build confidence and self respect. >> i'm around p em that i get along with, that we talk computerlingo with. >> first founded by one of our greatest inventors, dean kayman. he sees that kids look up to sports heros and movie stars. >> we said we have a culture obsessed with sports and

entertainment, let's inspire kids to be like shaquille o'neal does thousands of hours a week bouncing a ball. >> scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side as athletes and entertainers as role molds. here at the white house we will lead by example. we will show young people how cool science can be. >> go first! >> 250,000 kids age 6 to 18 compete at all different levels. in two first lego leads, the first tech shop. at the high school level, the first robotics competition. >> the only difference between this sport and all of the others is every kid on our teams can turn pro. there's a job out there for every one of these kids. >> student who take part in first are 50% more likely go to college and twice as likely to major in science or engineering.

>> i definitely know i want to go into engineering. >> once they taste the power of knowledge, that it can be fun and rewarding, they won't go back. >> there's no doubt first works. >> 10 or 15 or 20 years from today, some kid in those stands will have cured alzheimers or aids or cancer or build an engine that doesn't pollute. look at these kids. they're the future. >> i feel like can i go and do anything i want to do because of this program. >> someone took the time to guide and ip spiinspire me. it changed my life. take some time. go to u.s.first upon the org.ns. it changed my life. take some time. go to u.s.first upon the orupo.. >> you have do what the voice of god tells you.

firstly, thank you, chairman smith. thank you, chairman bouchan. thank you, ranking member lopinski and thank you ranking member johnson. each one of you has made comments that make this seem like it's going to be real easy. i think everybody understands the problem. everybody understands the importance of reinvigorating the entire generation of american kids to be leaders in the world in science and tech. maybe this is unusual for you. i don't know much about washington, but it seems like everybody comes here asking for something. i can tell you, i as research, am not asking for anything for me or my company. as, as founder of first, am not asking you for anything for first. first has 3500 corporate sponsor now. first has 160 universities desperate to help get these kids into their system p. they gave us last year over $18

million in scholarships to give out at our championship. asking you for them, but there are a few tens of millions of kids in this country that don't have access to first. they're not capable of leveraging what these 3500 corporate sponsors, that are donating 120,000 world class scientists and engineers, you can't buy these people. you couldn't afford them and you can't buy passion. they do it because they care. because they're serious adults. and professionals and parents. they know that you got to invigorate kids to do something like this. so i'm here to ask you how to figure out how to get first available in all these schools. and by doing that, you will be able to leverage what first has put together over the last 25 years. and i think it will be a winner for everybody. my little red light is on, so i

guess i have to shut up. >> thank you very much. i now recognize mr. partovi for his testimony. >> thank you very much. i learn froed gram early when i was young. i studied computer science at harvard. this set up my career with an an early job at microsoft. sorry. sorry. i think you already heard me. i start mid early career as an early scientists. i studied computer science at harvard. this set up my career with a great job at microsoft. i've co-founded multiple companies and was an early investor in some of our country's most successful start-ups. i'm living the american dream and this is because of my foundation of computer science. computer science fuels the

american dream. i'm here not to testify on behalf of the organization, co.por co.org. but the 90% of our schools don't teach computer science. i will show you a short video to give you in their words why this is important. >> software and computers, it used to be that that was kind after separate area of the world. but now software touches all these different things that you use. >> i think if you look in everything, there's more phones and tablets an laptops and web sites and everybody's on social media and i mean, it is just all these different things and everybody is just moving faster. so just being in a position to kind of understand that language that's going to be the future, i mean, i think it is a -- i think it's a good thing to do. >> it is absolutely crucial know thousand code and to understand

all technology and even if you don't choose to, you know, make a living and full-time software developer, understanding how software works, which is something that affects everything around you from purchases to, you know, how you eat and just how everything works these days. it is really important to know how it works so that you are not sort of a victim of other people's choices. >> it is important for these kids, right now, starting at 8 years old, to be a citizen on this planet. whatever country you're from, to read and write code. >> if you wait until you're an adult, you probably will never do it. >> i always felt like if i didn't learn how to program, it would be like not learning how to read. the future would just be closed to me. >> when i think about what we with are teaching in schools, 5, 10, 15 years from now, i think that computer science or at least basic programming is going to be as important of a skill as

being able to do basic reading and writing. and i think we're going to look back and wonder why it took us so long to get to that point. >> so my organization's goal is to bring computer science to all of the schools of this country. people often confuse, what is computer science p. when i went to school, every teacher taught how to dissect a frog or how lelectricity works. i believe it is fally important know how to dissect an app. this is not just career in technologies or for even for kids who don't want to pursue a career in technology. even if they want to be a doctor. the national science foundation projects only 400,000 graduates

going into the field. that's a million jobs in the gap between jobs and student, there are 500 billion in salaryes. what's more, these jobs are in every state and in every industry. this isn't about google or microsoft having trouble hiring skilled laborers. only one-third of competing jobs are in technology. rest are banking, manufacturing, government, retail, et cetera. if there is one thing i want you to remember today, it is the charts i'm showing here. the chart on the left shows you the amount of time high school student spend in all of stem and the small sliver that is computer science p. if rs the chart on the right shows the jobs in all of stem and the very giant segment that is computer science. and you wonder, why is there a mismatch there? because 90% of our schools do not even teach this field. of the tiny sliver that do study computer science, only 15% are girls and less than 8% are hispanic americans and african-americans. a huge problem for our country

and our policies don't support it. in 35 of 50 states stem doesn't count for high school requirements. of the money you mentioned being spent on stem, almost none of it goes to computer science because of the barriers, we want you to help remove from the system. people often ask, can student learn it? can teachers teach it? why aren't we not focussing on basic math that we are failing at. we proved last month our student can learn it. an hour of code was kicked off by the house majority leaders, the white house, google, microsoft, apple, and many others, 20 million student participated with 17 million in the united states, one 1 out of every 4 students learned an hour of code and half were girls. an amazing accomplishment to put this into context.

ap computers and science exam has 32,000 students participating. all of u.s. first clubs 350,000 students, the math s.a.t., 1.7 million, the hour of coded 17 million participants. and it goes to show that our kids can learn this. i'm having an issue with my slides. student want it, parent want it. and i'm not talking about code. i'm talking about computer science. how do you answer the parent who asks why isn't this foundational field taught in my kids schools. how do you remove the barriers that get in the way right now. i have a short video to show, 30 secretary after girl who came back, one of the student in america who came back to her mom or dad after learning one hour of code. >> i got it on my ipad. >> what is it.

>> it's a -- it's hour of code lightning, i think. >> have you done it before? >> yes at school. >> is it fun. >> yes. and my school is doing it p. yes, i love it. >> is coding super fun? >> yes. >> are you coding? >> mm-hm. >> tomorrow? >> you want to learn to code? all right, once it loads, i'm going to teach you. >> every kid in america can learn computer science. 90% of our schools don't teach it. we can help fix this. thank you very much. >> thank you. i now recognize dr. joan why for five minutes for his testimony. five minutes for his testimony. >> good morning members of the committee. i would like to thank ranking members and chairmen for inviting me to testify today. the mission of my office is to connect k-12 teachers and student to the world class stem resources of northwest university and beyond.

today we work with a growing network of over 200 chicago schools. 48,000 students. aim proud to announce that next week slig public schools is launching co.org computer science curriculum for all of its high schools. today we focus on three models for stem initiatives. all three examples illustrate the importance of building in both scaleability and sustainability. on all three leveraged private sector support to expand and us is pain federal investments. >> we are fortunate to work with many industry partners including boeing, hewlett-packard, ibm, motorola and seamans. i would like to share our work today with baxter international, a global health care company located outside of chicago. their generous support created a biotechnology center of

excellence at lindh bloom math and science academy, which is grade 7-12 public school on the southwest side of chicago that servees a predominantly minority population. this gives teachers lab equipment and other resources focused on the important field of biotechnology. not just these teachers but teachers across the district. we have trained 168 teachers from 115 different schools, reaching over 020,000 student. this center of excellence model is building self sustaining capacity in the chicago public schools to improve teaching of biotechnology across the entire district. one of the curriculum offerings to teachers is an innovative set of biology labs we developed with my colleague dr. teresa woodruff in medical stool. this is nih funded research in

fertility. center of excellence model demonstrates the power of partnerships between the private sector, universities and public schools. the federal nih dollars invested tps to pay dividends and hundreds of teachers and thousands of student each year have the support from baxter. i would like to share a second one with you, illinois pathways. a state of illinois stem education initiative that has created new public-private partnerships known as stem learning exchanges. each of the nine exchanges coordinate investments, resources an planning in stem industry sectors like information technology, manufacturing, energy, and research and development. >> this effort launch with $2.3 million with federal race to the top money, then leveraged to $8.5 million in public and private matching funds. illinois business roundtable, an

organization made up of ceos and other industry leaders are a key initiative in our state. northwestern is a proud member of the research and development learning ex change. one of our signature projects mentor matching. this on-line resource pairs student with mentors to conduct independent research in stem fields. you can think of it like match.com for student researchers. by connecting student and teachers on-line, this helps level the playing field by accessing meanters to student all across the state, especially in rural and urban areas. stem exchanges from been serving as statewide distribution plat forms for stem education resources. the third and final example i would like to share is our out of school program called fuse. it is a project funded by the mcarthur foundation in the national science foundation as

well as companies including motorola knowbility, seamans and ibm. in topics, we add the design to stem while fostering the development of important 21st century skills like creative problem solving, persistence and grit. i like to play a short clip that illustrates some of the fun and engaging challenges we have with our private sector partners. so fuse currently has 20 challenges sequences in areas of robotics, electronics, solar energy, jewelry and 3-d printing. some of the ones on the video exemplify this. the jewelry designer challenges in particular, very popular with girls. and it uses all of the same design and 3-d printing skills

that you need for advanced manufacturing and other skills. so fuse is yet another example after platform that can be scaled up to engage large numbers of youth in stem or steam fields. for industry partners, pot modular format that you see here and focus out of school time learning is often more appealing than inschool curriculum that can be very school and bureaucratic. the disem nation network, offered to use at growing network of 17 sites around the chicago metro area. rs so to wrap up, my key message today is that what has been missing from the recent discussions of federal stem policy is a recognition of the importance of creating robust dissemination mechanisms. the to support the sustainability of high quality testimony education programs vel woepd either federal or private sector support. >> to really engage students with high quality stem education, we need the leadership and support of both the federal government andbçasd private sector to create

distribution platforms like the itunes app store or android play store for smart phones to create similar kind of distribution plat forms for stem education resources like the examples i highlighted today. thank you. >> thank you very much. i now recognize dr. cornwell for five minutes for his testimony. >> chairmen, ranking member lopinski and johnson, thank you so much for inviting me today. i'm dr. cornwell from institute of technology. the university focused entirely on math, science and engineering education. for 15 years we have been ranked as number one in our cat cor category. which ranges in schools that don't offer a ph.d. so we have about 2200 student

which makes us a small school but midsize college of engineering. our placement rate last year was about 99%. always 99%. average starting salary is about $ $67,000. and we provide our student with the world's best undergraduate stem education in the environment of individual attention and support. that means we hire members with a passion for their technical field and also student in undergraduation. our goal is to graduate technically outstanding well rounded lib stem professionals. we have a number of outreach activity to share with you. one of our most successful, operation catapult thp. that's three-week summer o program. they work on a technical project that has a faculty member as mentor.

about 30% of students end up coming. about o 70% study stem at other universities. it is a great way to solidify their interest in stem. we also have a program called homework hot line. which has been around since 1991. basic there i what that is, a math and science tutoring program for student in grade 6 through 12. if a student has problems with math and science project and can't get help at home, they can call. where student are available as tutors and helping students not just get the answer but to understand the material. we also do a lot of industry. i will welcome one unique program. rose home adventures is basically an engineering consulting business that operates on the campus. and student that work with rose holeman venture are student interns that work under the super vision of professional project manager with client companies on projects that are important to the company.

could be a coding project. could be a developing a prototype. could be developing a product. just something that is important for the client. and client typically pay time and materials. and companies range from small start-ups to large companies. one of the reasons for this committee hearing, i believe, is for recognize that we need more stem professionals in the united states. for me, there are two key things to accomplish that. one is to increase the pipeline. increase the number of student interested in stem. this is largely what we are talking about today. secondly, once the student enter college, to grad yit more of them and help them be successful. programs like first robotics, many programs do a fantastic job of energizing students. helping student in engineering

computer science as a possible career option which i think is absolutely critical but i also think it is actually important to strengthen math science and at a computer science curriculum in the high school so when they get to college they are prepared to be successful in the very rigorous curriculum required for all of those. as far as retention and graduation rates, if you look at student that currently enter l college with interest in engineering, and i will talk about engineering because that's my area of expertise, less than 50% graduate. it varies widely from school. if we can increase that number by just 10%, if i did calculations correct, that means within six years we could graduate a hundred thousand additional engineers without doing anything to the pipeline. just helping for student graduate. how do we do that? there's a lot of research on the topic. things that i think are important is early connection to

student to the discipline. first ro bbotics does that. it is frustrating to have a freshman drop out of engineering because they say they don't like engineering and they haven't had any engineering. dries drives you crazy. second, faculty members helping student be successful is important for graduation rates. i can share stories about that if you're interested. i also think undergraduate research and ininterpretships are important. what can the federal government do? certainly continue to suppor supportunder undergraduate research. that's critical. offering early internships. juniors and sophomores. they consider that important for recruitment. this is hard for students to get a meaningful internship as freshman. also, studying stem for lower

interest rates for student loans or loan forgiveness. there are ways to incentivize that. i tell student all the time, that education is grat great no matter what they want do. industry, graduate school, medical school, business school, politician, engineering is great. stem is great. and i applaud this committee at taking the leadership role in promoting stem education. thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to testify. >> you're welcome. i would like to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony and remind members of the committee that rules limit questioning to five minutes. the chair will open the round of questions. i recognize myself for five minutes. as co-sponsor of commuter science education act i share many of the cannerns that you do and i'm quite pleased that my home state of indiana allows rigorous science course to

satisfy core high school credits, especially since according to the conference board, there are 4,864 open computing jobs in indiana right now. that's changing by the minute, i'm assuming. according to your analytic, 264,000 indiana student did the hour of code in december 2013. mr. partovi, what do you see as the next steps for those student, if they want to pursue studying computer science? >> thank you very much for that question. you know, we are astonished to find 17 million student dot hour of code. we were prepared to offer more than one hour in terms of instruction. one hour was enough to demystify the field for teachers wsh parents, student to all realize compute are science is something that anybody can learn. but we also have a follow-on curriculum that any student can learn on line or any teach core

teach on-line. over 10,000 classrooms are teaching a full computer science class to almost 500,000 students. to put this into context, in october or any point in history, there is at most 10,000 classrooms teaching computer science and in one month we double it. almost tripled or quadrupled it within one month because of the follow-up of hour of code. it shows an incredibly popular top wick students wsh parents and teachers and not just for code.org but for computer sciences like you have sponsored, to remove the federal government barriers that prevent the field from spreading to public schools. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> mr. kayman? >> what differentiate wur programs and others from stem initiatives because you've been very successful. why do you think it has been successful and what principles and techniques used in your programs would you suggest to the federal stem education

program? >> i think the primary reason we've been successful, is that the premise right up front was, 25 years ago, the world of parents and politicians and government leaders and corporate leaders was, we have an education crisis. my mother is a teacher. she reminds me of that everyday. we have a lot of great teachers. i'm an inveptor. what do we look at? we look at same problems everyone else does and we see them differently. i say, my mom is probably right, she always is. we don't have an education crisis. you have a culture crisis. you get the best of what you celebrate. it is not that we don't have enough dedicated teachers. surgeons willing to commit themselves to public service. america is base owned people that get together and solve a problem. our problem is we have a such a passion in our culture because

we have become rich, we have spend time on leisure. we have super heroes from two places. hollywood, sports, and particular for women in minorities, they are sucked into spending their time until they are 18 or 19 developing skill sets that aren't likely to lead to great jobs. so i said, let's get those industries that need these people, world class tech companies together, create superheroes, use them ought networks, sports entertainment and let the private sector solve the culture problem. you get the best of what you celebrate. let's celebrate science and technology. chairman smith said it was the best atmosphere in here. you can't believe it when i say it, we started with one event at the end of our season in 1991. high school gym in manchester, new hampshire, 23 teams that came to the one event and it was over. with compound annual growth, now 25,000 schools around the world

and march madness, with more than 60 cities around the united states holding spectacularly large events throughout march p. there is one near every one of you. every one of you have has a school in your district that is involved with first. we get the best of what we celebrate, it wouldn't be hard to invite to you the final four of the super bowl, you go. you find the time. i ask two things. you each need go to one of the events in injury state and support the kids. it is a lot of fun. bring your own kids and grand kids. second of all, you see what happens when kids develop self confidence and become aware they can do the things that will lead to great careers. i also invite to you the championship. we will fill 76,000-seat arena. we succeed because we have industry behind us. they, in their own self interest, want the kids to become world class scientists and inventors. that's what they need. that's what this country needs. we succeed because it is private

sector. ways told 25 years ago, you'll never pull this off because you will run out of giant companies that can support all the schools. i thought that was my biggest problem. these companies just keep delivering. they mentors, scientists, engineers. the staggering thing to me is the school side. . all they need do is give that math or science teacher the same stippen as you give the football coach for the extra effort after school. schools have a hundred-year history of figuring how the fund those other programs. the appropriate public skied commitment to make sure that particularly the underserved schools can take advantage of first is what you need do. then we will be in every school in this country. >> thank you very much. i now recognize ranking member mr. lopiski. five minutes. >> thank you. i want it thank all of the witnesses tore their testimony. exciting to hear a lot of these

things that are going on. i no he that more needs to be done. i want to give dr. jonah a little bit about what you have done at northwestern. very impressive. what you have here in your written testimony. i wanted to ask, because we always face, especially with this issue, we have people come in and talk about great things that are doing and it is always okay, how do we expand this. how do rereplicate it. certainly with what you have done at northwest and in the chicago area. how do we replicate it. what were challenges you face in establishing growing the office of stem education or education partnership and what lessons can be taken by other institutions who wanted to establish something similar? >> thank you for that question. >> the work that we do with our

faculty would be similarly done at other institutions. it is largely funded by nsf broader impacts requirements. and while this is an incredibly helpful requirement and stream of funding, there is really never enough of the funds to go around. we are living on the margins, if you will, and what i guess i would like to see is nih and other stem mission agencies adopting similar requirements or similar funding streams to broaden out that pool. my written testimony includes a number of recommendations for strengthening and expanding snsf. that's a key source for other new offices like mine to get up and running and off the ground. >> are there other things that our governments can do. northwest is in a unique position. in a large urban area. private university. are there things that maybe they

can do to help or suggestions you have for other schools that might be looking at doing this who may not be in that position northwestern is in. >> yes. i feel very strongly that federal government could play an important role in providing funding were for example, for offices like mine. especially at smaller institutions or rural i i institutions to help them get jump-started and off the ground. another important role would be to support a national network of these offices so we can begin to support each other and share the best practices that we've developed over time with these smaller and newer offices. in addition, this network could serve as national distribution network for facilitating the prodder dissemination of federally funded stem resources that are developed at any of our institutions. >> so other questions that i can

ask -- i want to go to this, i know chairman asked questions about what you had done with the hour of code. i know about 830,000 student in the state of illinois took part in the hour of code. you put up there very stark how many jobs, how few -- how few student will come out of college for those jobs. is it something, how do we make that better understood? it seems like, when i was in college, as an engineer, okay, what are the jobs supposed to be and maybe directing a sense of where to go. why is that not happening. is it because of the lack of background in student just saying, i can't -- there is nothing i can do. or not something i'm interested in. why do you think it is that there is no response to this job

demand that we know, that is out there and will continue to be out there? >> thank you very much. a great question. one thing i have trouble getting p em people to realize that thea common threat of not having enough stem professionals in the country. if you look at the data, most stem fields there are too many graduates. there are more engineering graduates than engineering jobs. more lie sciences graduates than life sciences jobs. and way more computer science graduates than jobs. if student are in one of the 90% of schools that doesn't teach computer science, they didn't have the background to think i could do this. the way to solve the problem isn't just building awareness. they know if i could be the next mark zuk areburg, that is an amazing future. that is the american dream. they think, i can't do it

because high school never exposed them to it. >> i see my time is up. thank you everyone for the testimony. >> i recognize chairman smith. >> thank you, chairman. we've gotten a lot of good advice today that i think we ought to take to heart. dr. cornwell mentioned a corporate component to strengthen our curriculum and increase the percentage of majors in engineering and i assume other stem subjects as well. dr. jonah talked about supporting our stem students outside the classroom. mr. partovi mentioned the barriers we face with regulations. i want to come back to that in a minute. the fact that schools don't even teach computer science and big gap between what is taught and what is needed in the stem type jobs. and mr. kayman talked about encouraging stem student through robotics. and mr. kayman, let me direct my first question to you. you mentioned the very last part of your testimony, part of this

came from your mother who is a teacher, the need to change our culture and celebrate some of the subjects. let me ask you to expound a little bit on as to how we might to that in a practical way. >> as i said, one of the things that makes america great, is it is the land of opportunity. if you're not searching for the right opportunity, you're not going to find it. we have celebrated almost to obsession the kinds of activities, particularly for kids that don't have professional parents or people around them p. so they not only aren't aware of or don't have access to computer sigh ebs, but i'm afraid of them, that the women and minority would be wouldn't do it if they did have access. it is too difficult, too hard for them. they want to come good at things that they are good at, and realistical

realistically, there are no jobs. so we want to celebrate science and technology. all kids will realize they can do this. as i said before, we succeed, and i encourage you go to one of these events and celebrate with kids. 86% of the kids through the program go college to study some technology or go into a field with the technology and get great jobs. everybody is behind this but the school system, as you know, are a little bit -- they lack the resources. >> let me follow up on that. thank you, mr. kayman. mr. partovi, i checked and i think i know the problem. that is in the definition of core academic subjects, there is no mention of computer science. ly cler li /* /- clearly that is

out of date. a colleague of ours introduced to change that provision. a chairman lopisk i and i believe -- [ inaudible ] i certainly will be adding my name. if members of the committee want know what they can do about it to bring a greater focus on computer science, and to make sure it is part of the curriculum, one answer is to support that particular piece of legislation. thank you for calling that to our attention. let me ask all of the panelists and a couple of you talked for many years, we all know what we need to teach. what should we be doing differently as to how we teach these subjects. and maybe start with dr. cornwell and work back down the panel. >> for me, one of the keys to teaching computer engineering science is engagement in material. >> i have to ask you all, because of limited time, maybe

30 seconds. >> right. but in terms of education, is flip classrooms. if there is portion of class where i'm lecturing and student are listening, that's a waste of time. put that on line. make the classroom much more interactive, project-based. that is important in classes like meg why tronnics. but engage student in the material. is it t is critical. even though you need the lecture material, the effective use of technology and increased active engagement is the key. >> dr. jonah? >> i would take a little bit of issue with mr. kayman's analysis that stem is to difficult. i think it is too risky for kids to do in school if you take the exact program, the only way to succeed is to try and learn from your mistakes.

that not an environment where it is predominant. kids are worried about taking risks and lowering their gpa. so they shy away from stem for that reason. >> i have a quick answer h is making it more fun. you saw that little girl's reaction. our tutorial feature angry birds, lectures by mark zuckerberg or cross bosch ahris feels like a game. kids don't know they are learning. >> i agree. you have to make it fun. make it rewarding. you have to show them superstars that they can aspire to be like it. that's what drives kids to put passion into things in this country and we've got to get kids passionate about science and technology and make them believe it is available, it is accessible, it is fun, it is rewarding and a great career. >> i might add one other idea. it is not original. i heard it yesterday from a tech

meeting. with it being too difficult or that would allow student to basically progress at their own pace. so they are not keeping up with the class, not discouraged from taking the subjects. that might be another consideration as well. thank you mr. chairman. yield back. >> thank you. five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you all for peeg here being here. i think this is an important topic. i have 24,000 important reasons to be here. 24,000 open jobs and two little girls. i have a 4-year-old named tess and 7-year-old named sophie. sophie newest passion is the codable and hopscotch apps, and she totally geeks out on it. maybe i will start with mr.

partovi and invite others to chime in. be more directive to us. outside of csca and dr. jonah, you mentioned the potential of having the government promote plat forms. are there other things that congress ought to do to step up, not just to fill the 24,000 jobs in my state, but to make sure we have a work force in the next generation. >> sure. i looked at the core issue in computer science, which is driving these jobs, the high school pipeline, this is a no-brainer. it only removed barriers. doesn't increase funding. it does what the federal government should be doing which is giving more control to the state. but if you want to go beyond that, i wouldn't say to increase funding but look at the existing $3 billion in stem funding or existing 1.5 billion in k-5 stem funding and how much of that

goes to stem? i would say almost none of it. in high school, stem funding is boyology, chemistry, physics, calculus. i have another against those things pu they don't think of computer science as a stem topic. we think of stem as robotics, engineering, computer science, coding. that is not what schools think. so stem funding you are providing, billions of it, goes where the jobs aren't, actually. >> i would invite others to chime in. if there are other suggestions for congress. >> i will give you a subjectings. >> i know that two sides of congress need to be polarize owned a lot of issues. i can tell you from my day job, i have 500 engineers. we work on a lot of projects. a lot of big companies, most of which you have heard about or are members of first as well. in my day job, i now have 30 openings.