STEM Literacy for All

Former "Big Blue" (IBM) VP Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes in a Wall Street Journal CIO column that all students need STEM literacy, even if they are not in the 1% who will become engineers or the .01% who will become Ph.D. researchers in STEM fields.  He opines that every modern citizen and worker needs to have technical skills such as quantitative reasoning and dealing with complexities.  Yet, many have the misconception, perhaps aided by educators, that these skills are only for those who will be STEM professionals.  Prof. Richard Larson from MIT is quoted in the CIO Report: “A person has STEM literacy if she can understand the world around her in a logical way guided by the principals of scientific thought. A STEM-literate person can think for herself. She asks critical questions. She can form hypotheses and seek data to confirm or deny them. She sees the beauty and complexity in nature and seeks to understand. She sees the modern world that mankind has created and hopes to use her STEM-related skills and knowledge to improve it.”  http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/09/23/why-cios-desperately-need-a-technology-literate-society/