Science Education

At most universities, freshman chemistry, a class I've taught for nearly 40 years, is the first course students take on the road to a career in the health professions or the biological or physical sciences. It's a tough course, and for many students it's the obstacle that keeps them from majoring in science. This is particularly true for minority students. In 2005, more than two-thirds of the American scientific workforce was composed of white males. But by 2050, white males will make up less than one-fourth of the population.

At some Los Angeles elementary schools, teachers have drastically cut time for science because of pressure to focus on reading and math. If they can incorporate science into class time, they say they mostly have to buy their own supplies. And educators from the state's high-tech epicenter of Silicon Valley say some students come to high school having never once conducted an experiment in earlier grades. California, known as a global symbol of scientific and technological excellence, is failing to invest enough time, money and training to teach science well, according to interviews and a new survey of more than 1,100 elementary school teachers and administrators.

Re "Public Schools Can't Deliver Science Education Alone," editorial, July 5: You call justifiably for more science in American school education. The issue is surely partly as you state it: Incentives are needed for those in academic science to teach in the school system. There are, however, very powerful disincentives of another sort that stem from the school system's inability to establish a teaching environment where scientists have the freedom to teach the basics underlying these disciplines, unencumbered by religious advocacy.

At most universities, freshman chemistry, a class I've taught for nearly 40 years, is the first course students take on the road to a career in the health professions or the biological or physical sciences. It's a tough course, and for many students it's the obstacle that keeps them from majoring in science. This is particularly true for minority students. In 2005, more than two-thirds of the American scientific workforce was composed of white males. But by 2050, white males will make up less than one-fourth of the population.

The National Science Foundation on Thursday announced a $50-million program to greatly expand and upgrade science education for elementary schoolchildren over the next four years, sponsoring the first large-scale development of science curriculum since the post-Sputnik era three decades ago. Citing the need to recover the nation's competitive position in the world, the federal agency hopes to establish science as a basic course for students as early as kindergarten.

Chapman University has received a $300,000 grant from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, which in turn will prompt the release of funds from a $150,000 challenge grant awarded in 1991 by the James Irvine Foundation. The grants will be used primarily for undergraduate science education. The university also recently received a $100,000 grant from an anonymous donor for science education.

Caltech has received a five-year, $2-million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of Bethesda, Md., for pre-college and undergraduate science education. Areas that will receive money from the grant include the Summer Undergraduate and Minority Undergraduate research fellowships. Pre-college and outreach programs include a summer science institute for college-bound 11th-graders and a science training course for elementary school teachers.

American students are learning the fundamentals of science but they are not developing the sophisticated skills needed to analyze or integrate scientific information, according to a major study released Thursday by the Department of Education. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander said that the failure of the educational system to rise above basic science education is undermining the nation's ability to compete in a high-tech world that is increasingly dependent on strong math and science skills.

Prospects for better science teaching in American public schools have been markedly improved by proposed new national standards for science education. But the standards mean little without a commitment from local school districts, universities and businesses to provide the resources, leadership and staffs to reverse a deterioration in American scientific literacy that threatens the nation's economic future. The issue here is not producing more scientists and engineers; they are in surplus now.

Re "A holy war?" Opinion, Aug. 11 As a long- standing member of the National Center for Science Education, I cannot begin to tell you how much harm Richard Dawkins and his fellow neo-reductionists have caused our efforts. Perhaps he has some secret agenda to "draw fire" from the creationists that is normally directed against biology teachers. If so, he is naive to a fault. The wall of fear and ignorance shielding the 46% of U.S. citizens cited in this article from modern science is merely stiffened by Dawkins' attacks.

With President Obama calling math and science education the key to good jobs in our future economy, Congress was told Wednesday that a pilot program in Los Angeles schools has started to show promising results in computer science.

It is one of the most remarkable aspects of science that we often don't know where the next practical breakthrough -- the one that might dramatically affect our everyday lives -- will come from, a fact that has taken on new significance during the current presidential campaign.

A few hours after receiving the Council for Elementary Science International's Science Advocate Award and a standing ovation from 1,000 science teachers in 2000, Don Herbert was asked to pull a water balloon into a bottle. He used one of his old tricks. As a science educator, he knew them all. And as Mr. Wizard, he'd shown them to the world. Mr. Wizard was television's original science teacher, the first guy to use television to teach.

The American sweep of Nobel Prizes in science this year has filled the nation's science educators not only with pride over what's done well in U.S. labs and classrooms -- but angst over what's not. "We are the best in the world at what we do at the top end, and we are mediocre -- or worse -- at the bottom end," said Jon D. Miller of Michigan State University, who studies the role of science in American society.

With gas prices topping $3 a gallon and jobs continuing to move overseas, President Bush is presenting anew his long-term solution to the nation's economic anxieties: a program to boost the study of math and science and the renewal of a tax credit to encourage industrial research and development.

A year ago, President Bush's top domestic priority was a Social Security overhaul. It sank amid a partisan firestorm. This year, in contrast, his new American Competitiveness Initiative is triggering a stampede of bipartisan support. It could be one of the few administration initiatives to be enacted in this congressional election year.

The U.S. government must take immediate action to enhance science education from kindergarten onward to secure the country's economic and technological leadership, a National Academies panel of scientists, educators and business leaders said. With so much knowledge and low-cost labor available around the world, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode, the panel said.