Science Education & Policy

Much has been written about how inspirational teachers can turn students on to a subject they perhaps would otherwise have let drift away. But what do you do if you're really into a subject but have a poor teacher who is doing their best to turn you off? I think many scientists show signs of their curiosity at an early age. They may not know exactly where they will end up but they know that they need to know. Whether it's a fascination with why the Moon doesn't fall to Earth, with how your tropical fish procreate or what your cat's dreaming about, the first step towards knowing is to ask.…

It's that time again for a look at how dumb the public is about science. One in ten children thought the telephone was invented by the Queen, with Darwin coming in second place. One in twenty thought the first man on the moon was Luke Skywalker, or possibly Richard Branson. Some 60% thought Sir Isaac Newton discovered fire. OK, that's probably enough laughable statistics. However, this was a poll of 1,000 students, across primary and secondary schools, taken in Birmingham, UK. The results don't yet appear online at Birmingham Science City website but have been reported by the BBC. I do wonder…

What Is Science? Some time ago I was visiting a college in Pakistan.  I thought I was just there as an observer.  My mistake.  I was introduced to a physics class with final words that filled my soul with dread: " ... from England who is going to give a talk on the topic What is science? ". Now, when you are put on the spot like that, what do you do?  Well - it's science, so you can't just make stuff up.  You have to tell it like it is.  Fortunately, my bottom line for what constitutes science is all a matter of questions and answers.  Purely from memory,…

High school and college students who understand that the earth is 4.5 billion years old are much more likely to understand and accept human evolution, according to a survey published this month in Evolution. The finding could give educators a new strategy for teaching evolution, since the Earth's age is typically covered in physical rather than biological science classes. Researchers surveyed 400 students enrolled in several sections of a University of Minnesota introductory biology course for non-majors. The survey included questions about knowledge of evolution and whether students were…

There are times when online discussions get heated, times when people seem to have differing ideas of what certain concept actually mean. Sometimes Wikipedia helps in gaining at least the first foothold on a new subject, but sometimes you really want to find an expert. Academic Earth has thousands of videos and hundreds of complete courses from America's leading universities. Sadly, you can't get an online degree with them, but you can talk as if you already have one! ArchitectureAstronomyBiologyChemistryComputer ScienceEconomicsEngineeringEntrepreneurshipEnvironmental…

Do boys and girls learn differently? Differently enough to justify sex-segregated classes and schools? The ACLU says no and is involved in a case in Louisiana: In August 2009, the parents of students of the Rene A. Rost Middle School in Kaplan, Louisiana, learned that the school would begin segregating all core curriculum classes in four grades according to sex, and that no coed alternative would be offered. One parent, the mother of two daughters at Rene A. Rost, contacted the ACLU. We in turn contacted the school board, informing it that mandatory sex-segregated classes are unlawful, and we…

The authors of a new study published in Human Communication Research say that the media is losing some its ability to sway viewers on important social issues. Specifically, the study shows that the 'OC', a crummy drama series about teens and their turbulent lives in southern California, may be more effective in persuading young women to use birth control than a news-format program on the same issue. The results show the power that narratives like TV shows can have in influencing people, said Emily Moyer-Gusé, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State…

To get it on or not get it on, that is the question for adolescents and teens. The Bush administration pushed abstinence-only education as the way to go, and anyone daring to discuss safe sex and contraceptives was excoriated. As Bristol Palin can attest, abstinence-only education isn't the slam dunk its proponents claim. Many AOE programs were preachy, moralistic, criticized condom use, and advocated for abstinence until marriage. Unfortunately for children everywhere, these were the programs that were funded. Anyway, word got around more than Paris Hilton and the idea of AOE fell upon hard…

The current system for allocating grant money favors senior investigators with established labs over junior faculty with smaller labs and shorter track records, and conservative projects that are almost guaranteed to work over high risk-high payoff projects that take a bigger step away from established knowledge. This isn't news; it's an issue that's been debated over and over in the biomedical research community. Richard Klausner and David Baltimore have laid out some solutions (yes, I know this is old - I'm getting caught up on back issues of Nature): The National Institutes of Health (NIH…

THE QUESTION IS "What Will The Next Decade Bring In Science?" The answer is both obvious and dreamy at once. Well, 'motherhood' is a wonderful term for the expected and the unexpected. Take my piece on dimers as an illustration of this point. The elusive beryllium dimer was discussed for eight decades and in about 100 papers. Physicists and chemists alike disagreed over the evidence until 2009 when new experimental data brought better understanding to do new calculations. Next! Our next decade will unfold with the expected and unexpected science. As 2020…