We recently covered the fact that marketplace forces are driving students to opt for STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) degrees.

Eric Schwarz,the Co-Founder and CEO of Citizen Schools, offers another way to inspire more young Americans to choose STEM via a new program, US2020.

President Clinton joined US2020 and its leading corporate partners in announcing a plan to mobilize one million STEM mentors by the year 2020, in part through a new city competition to identify and advance creative local efforts to expand STEM mentoring. The US2020 City Competition will award $1 million in cash and in-kind support to up to five winning cities that propose plans to mobilize STEM volunteers through partnerships with leading science and technology businesses. The competition will allow cities to use their most powerful resources — their people — to unlock the potential of all of their students.

“We need these one million volunteers” to inspire students from diverse backgrounds to pursue challenging STEM courses in school and STEM careers after graduation, said President Clinton. “This commitment today increases rather dramatically the chances that (STEM teachers) will have enough students and that they will be students who never would have been in these classes before.”

US2020 was announced by President Obama at the 3nd Annual White House Science Fair in April. The initiative is led by Citizen Schools, a national education non-profit, and includes partnerships with leading science and technology firms and STEM non-profits. The goal is to help prepare the next generation of STEM professionals by recruiting and training STEM professionals to lead school-based and extra-curricular projects with students, such as building robots, conducting medical experiments, designing video games, and launching rockets.

US2020 seeks to make mentoring the new normal for STEM professionals. In the legal profession, 44 percent of lawyers did more than 20 hours of pro bono work in 2011. By contrast, our analysis suggests that only three to five percent of STEM professionals serve as mentors for 20 or more hours per year. The fastest growing sectors of the workforce are in STEM, yet only one in five of U.S. students are interested and proficient (17.3 percent) in STEM subjects. The main reasons for this lack of interest, according to the Lemelson Center at MIT: Most students don’t know STEM professionals, and they don’t know what they do.

Children learn best through experience. Children who grow up with a scientist or an engineer as a role model find avenues to unlock their natural curiosity. Even a basic childhood activity like flying a kite becomes a lesson in aerodynamics and a window into future careers. Children, who don’t have access to mentors, particularly in the STEM subjects, do not have the same opportunities, allowing potential to go untapped.