Lab co-sponsor of national conference in Santa Fe
“John” is learning about how trees grow. In a classroom exercise, shown in the video, A Mind of Their Own, the elementary school student tells an interviewer that trees need water, soil, and sunlight to grow.
But trees also need oxygen and carbon dioxide, part of the photosynthesis process that helps send nutrients to the tree and give color to its leaves. Getting John to understand how oxygen and carbon dioxide play a role in how trees grow presented a conundrum for his teacher. Even after months-long, intensive discussions--with lessons on carbon dioxide and oxygen using dry ice--John again told the interviewer that trees need only water, soil and sunlight to grow.
Teachers, educators, educational administrators and other attendees watched the video Wednesday during the National Symposium for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Program to Develop Informed Leadership for Changing the Course of K-16 Science Education, conference co-sponsored by the Laboratory in Santa Fe.
The video was part of a presentation on the state of kindergarten through college science learning and teaching in the United States. “We have a systems problem,” said Sally Goetz Shuler, executive director of the National Sciences Resources Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit organization and co-sponsor of the conference.
“We are turning kids off,” Goetz Shuler said about how science education is being taught. She said most school textbooks have nothing to do with how science is taught and learned in schools, and noted that today’s students live in a “black box” world of iPods, X-Box, television and computers with very little engagement in the natural world.
More than 150 people from 20 states are at the conference, which continues through Friday at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Santa Fe. The major goals of the symposium include understanding the current state of science education in the United States, examining research and examples of effective science teaching and learning approaches, highlighting innovative best practice programs in New Mexico and nationally, and exploring the critical role that scientists and engineers can play in facilitating the enhancement of science education in the nation.
Teachers, Goetz Shuler said, should strive to get children engaged again in every day life. “You have to bring a lot of stuff into the classroom, [and] it has be strategic and very focused,” she said.
In 1983, A Nation at Risk was released. The report talked about how this country’s schools were failing to educate students for the future. More than two decades later, Goetz Shuler said, some progress has been made in the nation’s schools, “but we still have a long way to go.”
She said the nation faces a dilemma: the number of jobs in which engineering or science and technology degrees are required is growing, but the number of university students in engineering and physical sciences is declining. Added to that, she said, the engineers and scientists working today are aging and soon will begin retiring.
What’s needed, Goetz Shuler continued, is for schools to place a higher value on science in school curricula, on par with the importance given to reading and math. She added that for science education to be successful, teachers need world-class tools and instructional materials and students and teachers must find that the classroom is a supporting environment.
Later Wednesday morning, a panel led by Goetz Shuler, and Smith Holt of the Oklahoma State University Center for Science Literacy discussed examples of how learning and teaching aligns with research. And conference participants took part in a hands-on exercise of “inquiry-centered science learning and teaching” by conducting an experiment in floating and sinking using a spring scale.
Terry Wallace, principal associate director for science, technology and engineering (PADSTE), welcomed participants to the conference. “I’m quite pleased that we are able to co-sponsor this event,” he said, noting that Los Alamos is the nation’s largest laboratory focused on basic and national research.
Wallace noted that the Laboratory needs and relies “very much on a world-class work force.” The Laboratory needs to recruit extraordinary personnel to help meet its mission, he said.
Two decades after World War II, the nation made huge investments in science, but over the years the focus changed and in the 1990s, very few students were pursuing science careers, especially in the basic sciences.
As a former academic, Wallace said he understands the challenge teachers face today. He said the nation is asking national laboratories like Los Alamos to solve problems ranging from pandemics to global warming, which will require a renewed emphasis on science education and changing the work force pipeline to meet these challenges.
Breakout sessions or panel discussions today focus on strategies and resources required to develop competency in teachers, and how scientists and engineers can contribute in this area; research about how people learn science; what is research-based instructional material; and the infrastructure required to support competent kindergarten through college teachers.
Wallace is scheduled to participate in a panel discussion this morning about how scientists and engineers can help bridge research and practical application.
More information about the conference is at http://www.nsrconline.org/ online.
