Abstract
My technical and STS projects intersect around the same core realization: that the information available to students during their K–12 education structures their knowledge base, and sense of belonging in STEM. I joined a capstone team to help design, build, and test a student-made rocket, but I soon noticed that many of my teammates came from schools with STEM-rich curricula, access to maker spaces, and prior experience in rocketry, programming, or engineering. Conversely, the public school system I attended in a conservative rural district offered none of these opportunities. This gap motivated my STS research on how the lack of consistent educational standards contributes to widespread disparities in scientific understanding and civic discourse. Society must begin to recognize that our professions do not begin at the college level - it begins with the conditions of access, encouragement, and preparation in childhood.
My technical project was part of a yearlong student-led effort to design and build from scratch a working rocket as a team of UVA Aerospace engineering students. I was on the Propulsion subteam, specifically assigned to the propellant subgroup. Early in the project, my role was to research grain geometries to optimize the burn rate of our solid rocket fuel, but partway through the year, we learned that UVA policy would not allow students to manufacture propellant on Grounds. Our sub-teams' role pivoted to selecting commercially available propellant formulas and pre-fabricated grain designs. Later, safety and liability concerns eliminated our ability to conduct a test launch . My responsibilities shifted again - this time to researching static fire tests and designing a stand that could handle our projected thrust levels - but that too was cut short for liability concerns. In the end, we consolidated our research to produce documentation for future student teams. While we didn’t get to see a working rocket, the project taught me about flexibility, technical research, and how institutional decisions can constrain or enable student innovation.
The contrast between my background and that of many of my teammates set in motion my STS research. I grew up in a rural, religious, and under-resourced school system that offered almost no STEM support. I was taught the bare minimum science and math required to graduate and received little encouragement from teachers. Many of them didn’t seem to believe STEM was important or accessible. By contrast, my teammates viewed engineering not as intimidating, but as achievable. My STS paper investigates how some private, religiously-affiliated K–12 schools are able to bypass science and history standards in favor of teaching a ‘Biblical worldview’, and how that cognitive framing can lead to the vilification of scientific reality. I argue that all accredited schools, regardless of their affiliation, should be required to teach evidence-based material - particularly in science - to fortify the population's self-autonomy against those that use faith as a tool of manipulation. Without federal standards, we risk raising generations of students who are more vulnerable to misinformation and less equipped to engage in democratic decision-making.
Together, these projects show that scientific understanding and civic responsibility are not separate realms. They are cultivated - or neglected - within the same educational structures. My STS lens draws on philosopher Karl Popper’s emphasis on falsifiability and Immanuel Kant’s commitment to rational autonomy to argue that reality must be approached with humility and tested through reason. Engineering is not just about designing systems - it’s also about defending the systems of knowledge and critical thinking that make democratic society possible. Without attention to the cultural and curricular frameworks that shape future engineers and citizens, we risk creating technologies that outpace our collective ability to use them wisely.
Notes
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering
Technical Advisor: Haibo Dong
STS Advisor: William Davis
Technical Team Members: Ardan Abraham, Andy Delgado, Duraan Miskinyar, Dylan Tran, Jake Bales, Tim Edinger, Miriam Morse, Jack Vietmeye,r Alexandria Barnard-Davignon, Noah Hassett, Jason Nguyen, Beth Westfall, Leo Bashaw, Jordyn Hicks, Aiden Ogle, Peter Zappia, Tucker Benton, Niklas Holle, Thomas Ortega, Marc Brightwell, Dylan House, Aaron Osborne, Joe Burton, Claire Kent, Johannes Quapil, Christopher Camacho, Connor Lothrop, Aymon Daud, Olivia Lyall, Daniel Tohti
