Every Friday evening I play indoor soccer. This competitive pick-up game is great practice for my Tuesday night league. We play in an old fieldhouse in Chicago’s west loop area. The roof is supported by wood bow-string trusses that span the entire width of the pitch. As a result of the low ceiling, we’re forced into playing with a lot of short passes on the ground.

According to a study by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year to improve the public’s understanding of engineering. Despite this investment, most Americans still don’t know what engineers do. This failure was the basis for another NAE report titled “Changing the Conversation.”

To discuss the implications of the report, representatives from each of the major engineering societies were invited to Washington, DC, for a special forum during Engineers Week. As a member of ASCE’s Committee on Pre-College Outreach, I had the opportunity to join in the discussion.

“Changing the Conversation” focuses on the messages that appear most likely to improve the public’s understanding of engineering. It begins with the following position statement, which was proposed as a guide for future conversations about the profession.

No profession unleashes the spirit of innovation like engineering. From research to real-world applications, engineers constantly discover how to improve our lives by creating bold new solutions that connect science to life in unexpected, forward-thinking ways. Few professions turn so many ideas into so many realities. Few have such a direct and positive effect on people’s everyday lives. We are counting on engineers and their imaginations to help us meet the needs of the 21st century.

Most engineers would consider this statement to be a suitable mantra for describing their place in society. Unfortunately, public perception of the engineering profession is not in keeping with this lofty self-image. According to studies referenced in the report, “engineers are not perceived to be as engaged with societal and community concerns or to play as great a role in saving lives as Scientists (Table 1). And when the relative prestige of all professions is tallied, engineering falls in the middle of the pack, well below medicine, nursing, science, and teaching (Table 2).”

Table 1 – Comparative Characteristics Associated with Engineers and Scientists

Table 2 – Percent of Americans Who Rate Selected Professions as Having “Very Great Prestige”

Although engineers may intuitively want people to have a more accurate and positive impression of their work, there are a number of reasons why engineers should be concerned with these findings. For one, the public discourse and democratic process could be enhanced if citizens understood more about the practice of engineering. Secondly, businesses and individuals could make better decisions when purchasing technological products and seeking technical consulting. Finally, improved public understanding of engineering could also maintain the nation’s capacity for technological innovation.

To begin addressing these concerns, it seems obvious that the engineering community needs to adopt a consistent message about what engineering is. The NAE report used focus group research and statistical studies of students and educators to propose a few well-constructed messages.

The most appealing message was found to be “engineers make a world of difference.” Perhaps surprisingly, the message that “engineering connects science to the real world” was found to be the least personally relevant to almost all demographics.

Whereas messages offer a complete sentence that clearly articulates a brand promise, a tagline is a short phrase that creates an image in the consumer’s mind. The most appealing taglines were found to be “turning ideas into reality” and “because dreams need doing.”

What message has the engineering profession been giving students and educators? Thinking back on your personal experience, do you remember hearing that “engineers are people who love math and science” and who have to “study harder than others in college?” Are those messages consistent with your experiences? Although popularly held views like these were not tested by the study, we can infer from the results that engineers should be promoting the social benefits of our work and not the debatably arduous journey to join the profession.

ASCE is among the leaders in integrating suitable messages into its outreach resources. A great example is the recently launched Web site for kids, www.asceville.org. Log on to explore an interactive environment that we hope will inspire the next generation of civil engineers. There’s also a page where engineers, educators, and parents can download brochures and activity guides – all designed to present the right messages.

You can continue the conversation by downloading the entire NAE report at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/12187.html or checking out ASCE’s latest outreach materials online.

What will the cities of the future look like? How will emerging technologies be incorporated into the infrastructure? How will the people of the future spend their days? Who is most qualified to postulate the answers to these questions? The best visionaries may be attending a middle school near you.

Each year 7^th and 8^th graders across the country are challenged to participate in the Future Cities Competition. The students are judged on their performance in three areas: generating a computer model via Sim City, constructing a physical scale model, and writing essays about their city and an emerging technology. This year I volunteered to judge all three aspects. Engineers can also volunteer to mentor the teams.

Check out the Future Cities Web site or contact your local ASCE section to learn how you can participate in the 2010 contest.

The Sim City portion of the contest is pretty straight forward. I’m amazed at how the students are able to develop such robust cities given all the challenges posed in the game. My cities usually go bankrupt after fewer than 10 years and 25,000 citizens.

The essays are my favorite thing to judge. This year’s topic was related to home water use and waste water management. The students researched a number of innovative means for reducing water use and limiting demands on the public wastewater system. Many of their ideas utilized existing common-sense technology like low flow faucets and rainwater collection barrels. Some students really thought out-of-box and described elaborate purification systems to be implemented in orbiting space-cities. Fantastic or not, all of the papers I judged demonstrated a surprising level of thoughtfulness.

The computer cities and essays are submitted a few weeks before the physical models, which are presented in person. The models illustrate just a few blocks of their master city. Students primarily use recycled materials as their building components, and the total in-kind cost of the model is strictly limited to $100. You see lots of re-used plastic containers and packing Styrofoam. Some models are extraordinarily intricate and obviously take hundreds of man-hours to complete. I find it interesting to see the different ideas explored by students from inner city public schools vs. suburban schools. Guess which cities typically have more dense urban centers and which have more open space expressed.

While the full team might encompass ten or so students, only three are allowed to present the model. These students must prepare a five minute presentation and be ready to answer the judge’s questions. When judging, it’s obvious that students come from a broad range of backgrounds. For some, this is their first foray into public speaking. Others take to the oratory naturally and must be encouraged to involve their teammates. Their enthusiasm for their cities, however, is universal.

The winners of the regional competitions are awarded with all-expense paid trips to the national competition held in Washington, DC. The Future City competition is one of the main events highlighting National Engineer’s week, typically held in mid-February. This year’s national winners are from Bexley Middle School in Bexley, Ohio. Their grand prize is a trip to U.S. Space Camp.

This was the third year that I’ve judged the Chicago regional, and every time I am impressed with the thoughtfulness and enthusiasm of the students. It’s reassuring to know that these kids are considering the difficult challenges our future cities will face.