Social issues provide real life and motivational questions which are successful in engaging the minds of many people (especially students). When dealing with social issues, students see the importance of so-called basic concepts and skills in dealing with them. For most persons, real mind engagement rarely occurs in educational settings. One important effort in science education to illustrate the advantages of the use of social issues as organizers for instruction has been termed the science-technology-society (STS) approach. A history of this approach in the U.S. is presented along with a fifty year history of its discovery and development highlighting the experiences of the author. This history includes major happenings in science and technology education, the challenges encountered, milestones identified, and an envisioned future.