Not to diminish the importance of this, but I think those statistics csn be miss leading. I like math and science, I always have, it’s magical stuff, but I don’t want to be an engineer. I want to write stories. That’s normal. Sometimes people like things but don’t want it to be their career!

Not to mention you can like math amd science and do other things with it than be an engineer! You can be a biologist, physicist, doctor, astronomer, mathematician, statician! Most 4th graders don’t distinguish between different sciences anyway. It’s all just “science”. Expecting even a majority of those interested in the 4th grade to become engineers is unreasonable. People change, or they have other interests as well. So it’s not as dismal as this would make you think!