TechBlog

This lack of knowledge is only part of the issue. In the US only 16% of all post-secondary education degrees are in math, science, or engineering, compared to 52% for China. And unfortunately those numbers are not all that different in the UK. If science and engineering are not national and global priorities how can we expect to cope with the complexities ahead and/or compete with nations that do value science?

So what can we do to change this situation? One solution could be new teaching methods aimed at exciting students about discovery.

I did not get excited about science until after I was drafted into the military during the Vietnam War and ended up in the medical corps. It was only there in the chaos of war that I learned firsthand that knowledge had real life and death consequences. While I went on to pursue a career in science after serving in Vietnam, I wish that my interest in science had been stimulated much sooner. We now know that to motivate students, particularly girls, for careers in science we need to capture their attention early.

At the Venter Institute we have developed a mobile genomics laboratory to bring the science of genomics to 12 and 13-year-olds to expose these students to scientific problem solving and the excitement of science. We started out with the simple idea of outfitting a large bus as a research laboratory, and then, working with schools, we developed learning modules taught by very enthusiastic and hands-on teachers. The results have been overwhelming. While many were at first skeptical of the program, because it was new and different from the standard lesson plans, we now have a waiting list for participants and we have constant calls and emails from parents and teachers who want the bus to come to their schools.

I think this program succeeds, because in each lesson plan we convey the wonderment of discovery and problem solving. For example, one lesson involves solving a crime scene investigation using DNA analysis much like is done in a popular TV program CSI. Had I been exposed to science in this real world manner I might have had a much better educational experience and at an earlier stage forged a stronger interest in science.

There are also science intensive schools that are trying alternative teaching methods. One such school in Virginia is teaching students to be more like scientists - to use inquiry-based learning and encouraging them to do experiments they designed themselves rather than age-old text book experiments and lessons heavy on memorisation. These students are learning what I learned on my own while doing research as an advanced university student: that there is no greater intellectual joy than asking seemingly simple questions about life, then designing an experiment to find answers and uncovering a never before known discovery. We need generations of children who are grounded in reality and who learn evidenced-based decision making as a life-long philosophy. Teaching science as evidence-based decision making could have a profound impact on the pace of future discoveries and inventions. Simply asking what is the evidence behind any claim is a marked contrast to approaching life only upon a faith-based system.

Fostering such scientific literacy is crucial, because we and our planet are facing problems that, I believe, can only be solved by scientific advancement.

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