The classroom looks like a cross between a science lab and wood shop. There's a chalkboard, computers, maybe a robotics model and some industrial equipment.
But unless you have graduated from high school in the past five years, you've probably never even heard of a technology literacy class.
The International Technology Education Association is hoping to change that — at least for your children.
The group, meeting earlier this month in Salt Lake City, announced the first-ever curriculum standards for the study of technology in grades K-12.
The standards were developed through funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA.
These are not the welding and drafting classes of a previous generation, said Kendall Starkweather, executive director of the technology-education association.
"We're at a point in history where technology is a controlling factor in society, but it's not being taught as a subject in our schools," he said. "It's just as important as math and science."
Starkweather says curriculum standards are the first step toward building courses that will prepare children to be better decision-makers.
"Technology has almost become so commonplace, we think of it as magic," said Anthony Gilberti, president of the association and a professor of industrial-technology education at Indiana State University. "Who knows, for example, how the garage door opener works? But without an understanding of how technology impacts culture, society and the environment, people are at the mercy of those who do understand.
"This is the study of the human-made world in the same way that science is a study of the natural world," Gilberti said.
And the lessons can begin at a very young age, said William Dugger Jr., a past president of the association. "Even for students in kindergarten. Although, naturally, it would need to be very simple for that age group." He is director of the Technology for All Americans Project.
As an example, he said, in the subject of energy and power technologies, students K-2 would just learn that energy comes in many forms and that it should not be wasted.
In grades 3-5, an understanding of the fact that tools and machines use energy to do work would be added to that basic concept of energy.
In junior high, students would learn about power systems, efficiency and conservation.
All those lessons would lay the groundwork for the study of thermodynamics and communication systems in high school.
The same sort of graduated study would be applied to manufacturing, transportation, construction and medical technologies.
"Most of us are technical peasants," said Dugger. "Our goal is to create people who are technologically literate — people who are neither afraid or in awe of technology."
Jim Christensen, the technology education specialist at the Utah State Office of Education, says some Utah schools are quite prepared to consider and perhaps integrate the standards.
"There are some junior high schools that are doing some very progressive things," he said.
But it is elementary school teachers who are most excited to learn how to use technology education in their classrooms.
"There are lots of ways we can help them improve their delivery methods, and get them talking about this new material," Christensen said.