A Matter of Health

Who will lead science?

By Ruth SoRelle, M.P.H.

Perhaps William H. Miller, Ph.D., of the University of California, Berkeley, and one of this year’s co-recipients of the 2007 Welch Award in Chemistry, put it best when he thanked Sputnik and the Soviets for sparking his career.

Math and science education in the United States was a lackluster affair in most public high schools and colleges until the beep-beep of that circling satellite galvanized politicians and educators alike. With a goal in hand and a competitor to beat, the United States changed the way it did business. Educational textbooks were rewritten, and classrooms upgraded as teachers dusted off their skills and began to communicate them to a new generation.

Sputnik and U.S. science education

It was during that time that I found myself in an accelerated math and science program in junior high school and later high school. AP tests gave me college credits before I set foot on the campus. I was not alone. Many of us benefited from that push.

Today, we face a similar dilemma. Few of our youngsters are considering science, mathematics or engineering as careers, and this threatens not only our leadership in these fields, but the nation’s economic future as well. According to a 2006 report for Congress from the National Academies, only 6 percent of U.S. college undergraduates are majoring in engineering. By contrast 12 percent of European and 40 percent of Chinese undergrads are engineering majors.

How do we reverse this trend? One is to change the way we teach science and math in our schools. Many students are not exposed to a science education in elementary, middle or high schools. Many teachers are not ready to teach those subjects but find themselves tasked in that area.

Educating teachers

Educating those teachers is the starting point. The report recommends educating 10,000 new teachers and giving the 250,000 already in the classroom a chance at advanced education to better prepare them for their students’ needs.

In Texas, The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, charged by its founder U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), is looking at ways to address the state’s problems in this area. A recent conference in Houston helped jumpstart the process that will help keep our children in school and encourage them to become literate in science and mathematics. Only then will they be able to compete on a world stage that increasingly demands that they understand these topics just to survive.

It is important for them as individuals and for us as a nation.