Science Education

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.

Melba Phillips, 97, a physicist who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer and was a pioneer in developing science education, died Nov. 8 in a Petersburg, Ind., nursing home of natural causes. After earning a doctorate at UC Berkeley, Phillips worked with Oppenheimer in the mid-1930s to explain unexpected reactions of various kinds of subatomic particles. Their findings, known as the Oppenheimer-Phillips effect, is considered classic in early nuclear physics.

With $1 million in federal and private donations, Cal State Fullerton this month launches a 2 1/2-year program to help junior- and senior-high school instructors improve teaching of Earth and space sciences. "High school and junior high science teachers face many problems, including working with outdated materials," said Carol Stadum, one of the program's two directors. "We're designing a program that can help these teachers, and it's a program that can go anywhere in the nation."

"In High-Tech Age, U.S. Science and Math Education Falters" (editorial, June 20) contains many valid points. But it fails to bring attention to the effects that the public's lack of participation in schools and in communicating with their legislators have on schools. I have been teaching science in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 10 years. The California State Framework on Science wants us to teach a hands-on science course at all levels, yet I was given $150 to purchase all the laboratory supplies I would need, which included having to buy my own paper for 170 students for a full year.

In setting ambitious achievement goals for science education, President Bush in his State of the Union address Wednesday night spotlighted one of the nation's most thoroughly documented problems. The abysmal state of science education has been chronicled by more than 300 studies in recent years. Now comes the hard part: There are as many conflicting ideas on how to revamp the system as there are reports. "We know what the goals are.

One has to travel no further than Kathleen Diener's fifth-grade class at the Madison School in Pasadena to find hope for remedying the appallingly inferior education our youngsters get in science. The other morning her pupils, mostly Latinos with limited English skills, were engrossed in a lesson on electric circuits, using kits of batteries, paper clips and bulbs. It was one of many "hands on" science lessons now used in all 525 elementary school classrooms in Pasadena.

In two previous editorials we have documented the deplorable state of science education in the nation's public schools and pointed out some promising efforts at improvement. But further progress will depend on clearing away major impediments to quality teaching and learning. These impediments are as much attitudinal as economic.

Third-graders should learn about the periodic table of elements. Fifth-graders should know the properties of common solids, liquids and gases. And high school students should master Newton's first, second and third laws of motion. Those are three of hundreds of new standards the State Board of Education adopted Friday for what students should be taught in science.

Sometimes, Manuel Ares might say from his own unhappy experience, scientific study can be a little too exciting. Eight months ago, an overnight fire of unknown origin swept through Ares' laboratory at UC Santa Cruz, destroying strains of genetic material and data the biology professor had accumulated and studied for 14 years.

Working with an army of experts from around the country, scientists, engineers and lawmakers here are laying plans to capture the hearts and minds of American youth and win them over to science and mathematics.