Check out "Physics for Future Presidents" by Richard Muller. It gives an overview of physics, emphasizing why the concepts are important in the modern world, r

Check out "Physics for Future Presidents" by Richard Muller. It gives an overview of physics, emphasizing why the concepts are important in the modern world, rather than the math details. If she's interested in biology, you might consider "Animals in Translation" by Temple Grandin. It's more about animals than about technology, but it touches on how understanding animals affects the low-tech systems that you use to handle them. For interesting/easy intros to why some math skills are important, look at Darrell Huff's "How to Lie With Statistics" or John Allen Paulos' "Innumeracy" (or "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper"). I haven't read any of them, but I hear Petroski's books recommended. For a great short read that touches on architectural engineering, law, and ethics, look for Joe Morgenstern's "Fifty-Nine Story Crisis" which appeared in the New Yorker in May 1995. It's about how the structural engineer for the Citicorp tower realized its design was flawed, after the tower had been built and occupied. You can find it on the web. Some of these are not overtly about "learn this technology", but to me they all sell the idea of technology and science as both central to our lives and interesting.