call to action

Let's face it, we as a society have a limited, even poor, image of scientists and engineers. For instance, just ask the average fifth-grader to draw his or her perception of a scientist and you'll most likely be given a depiction of a white male with wild Einstein-like hair, eccentric habits and attired in a lab coat, coke-bottle spectacles while working in an ivory tower laboratory...some might even describe him as "mad." Science's poor public image goes even deeper. In a survey conducted in 2007 by the Museum of Science and Industry in which 1,304 American adults were asked if they…