Ascendly is a social enterprise dedicated to teaching kids, at an early age, about how things work. We use cool kits and projects to help elementary school aged kids to gain both the confidence and the competence to build great things. While we have started small, our vision is to build a program that… Is based on a curriculum that is age appropriate, engaging, and full of learning opportunities; Is available to kids from K-12 grades (mostly K-4, right now) Is built off a scalable platform that will enable us to reach kids across the country, including students in the inner city and rural areas We know – it sounds ambitious. But we are passionate about building an organization that will encourage kids to pursue science and engineering as they grow up. The Ascendly Structures Engineering course for Kindergartners, for example, embraces the belief that if given fun and engaging projects, even the youngest students learn to think like an engineer. It transitions them from simply following instructions to becoming problem formulators and problem solvers. The course also encourages students to design their own use cases that tell a story of how an aspect of the project will eventually be used and to present those stories to the class. While still mindful of the limitations and opportunities of working with such young students, the course teaches engineering vocabulary, construction skills, and the engineering design process.