Abstract for: STEM Pressures from Birth to Globalization: Five Related Models

In the U.S., there is progressively more concern about the impact that changes in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills might have on the future of U.S. prosperity. In parallel with their many STEM initiatives, industry, education, and government are engaged in multi-faceted STEM policy conversations, both among themselves and with the American public. We know of five system dynamics models that have been developed toward the objective of improving these STEM policy conversations. In this session, Boeing, as catalyst for development of three of these five models, will outline the STEM problem, summarize and lightly compare the five models, and present one of the models. The model presented here arose from a reading of the National Academies' report, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future." The model focuses on the reinforcing feedback between U.S. prosperity and the U.S. Science and Technology Enterprise, and concentrates attention on how education, R&D investment, and immigration policies might act to strengthen or weaken that feedback. Thus, this model provides a dynamic conceptual framework within which one can place the other four STEM models to be presented in other sessions at this conference.