Cultivating the Next Generation of Scientists: Proposal for Designing a
National Math and Science Pathway Program
to Transform Student Engagement in the Sciences
Laurel K. Davis
Founder and Director, Apple Tree Services
310 695 6080
To sustain U.S. dominance in technological innovation and scientific discovery, a new generation of technically talented intellectuals must enter the workforce in the coming decades. Current projections suggest that there is a dearth in the population of young, “hungry” mathematicians and scientists, like those who have driven the U.S. knowledge and economic frontiers in the past. Thousands of American jobs in technology, research and the sciences will be lost or stand unfilled due to lack of qualified citizens. Current efforts to improve K-12 teacher training and formal educational experiences in science and math are well-intentioned but they are challenging to implement quickly, effectively and sustainably. These efforts would be enhanced by placing this issue squarely on the national agenda, and working to produce a sea change in the culture of American youth and how they view, participate in and pursue meaningful math and science work.
Technology industry leaders express dire concern over the technology personnel staffing issue. In the face of upcoming testing mandates provisioned in the No Child Left Behind Education Act, students and parents are becoming more aware of the drastic need for better learning opportunities in math and science, especially at the middle school level. This is an excellent opportunity for the Federal Government to launch an innovative, sustainable approach for transforming students’ engagement and performance in math and science. Parents, employers, scientific communities and educators are as highly motivated now as they will ever be to contribute to the learning of American students both in and out of school.
The Federal Government could capture this motivation and accelerate the national interest and commitment to math and science education by designing a National Math & Science “Pathway” Program through which 4th-8th grade students could be connected to a business or community partner that would provide an expedition, apprenticeship, career exploration, service learning event or other hands-on, concept-rich science or math experience to stimulate interest and understanding of the essential math and science knowledge needed by the future U.S. technological workforce. This would take advantage of the many resources available in communities but not always in schools, while not interfering with classroom instruction or placing the organizational burden of hosting such experiences on schools.
• The Federal Government’s role as network designer and administrator would use economies of scale and existing infrastructure to help streamline, make visible and generate support for expansion of existing programs that are offering hands-on experiences.
• The Federal Government’s role as agenda-setter makes it the most logical entity to organize both a national campaign to re-brand math and science as desirable pursuits, using events such as competitions, popular culture outlets and personality- and technology-driven “viral” or word-of-mouth marketing to gain buy-in from the desired pre-teen audience and generate “buzz” about Pathway opportunities. Events, guest speakers, public service announcements or other campaign content should be centered around a multimedia curriculum exposing students tothe lives, wonderings, works and faces of a diversity of mathematicians and scientists, bothhistorical and modern, so that students have visual role models.
• The Federal Government’s role in creating education policy has already set the stage for such a program, by mandating testing in math and science. Many schools also have self-imposed graduation requirements in place for community service and other types of highly valued work that are not classroom-based. A similar guideline requiring that students complete one in-school or out-of-school Pathway experience before exiting 8th grade would dramatically impact the quality level and participation rate in a community-based math-science initiative. Federal guidelines could also be developed to ensure some measure of consistency and content relevance across experiences. And as with any effective program, a research and evaluation cycle should be developed to conduct critical linear studies of the impact of Pathway participation in students’ selection of and performance in ongoing math and science studies from grade 9-postgraduate work and career.
Why this audience? Why use an informal education approach? Research in cognitive science and education indicates that meaningful learning occurs when high-quality instruction on content knowledge is integrated with frequent opportunities to apply that knowledge in authentic contexts. However, due to time, budget, training and material constraints, the majority of 4th-8th grade schoolchildren do their math and science work exclusively from a textbook and rarely if ever engage in the content for critical hands-on understanding.
This is also the age at which students lose interest and performance levels drop in math and science. Parents tend to provide less direct support as students become more independent in their studies. At the other end of the spectrum, many local, academic, and corporate-sponsored efforts exist which provide experiences for students to witness math and science in real world applications, and develop a personal interest in math and science studies and careers. However, many of these experiences emphasize the career or “gee whiz” factor of the science application, and do not make connections to conceptual content that would help students learn the material deeply and stay committed to their math and science studies. By providing guidance on creating a more inquiry-based experience rather than a show-and-tell, a National Math and Science Pathway Program would serve as a resource for enriching the conceptual nature of hands-on experiences while offering efficient processes for recruiting students to such opportunities.
The Pathway Program would leverage and improve efforts already in progress in communities around the country. A sampling of models includes:
• Apple Tree Services Academic Mentorship Programs, Culver City, CA
• Madison-JASON Expedition Project at the University of Wisconsin
• Citizen Schools Project, multi-city
• NASA Education Programs
• Scripps University Youth Outreach
• Shodor Education Foundation
• UCSB Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network
• “Do Science,” San Francisco, CA
The Federal Government should continue to ramp up teacher training and efforts like those stated in the 1993 Initiative to recruit professionals into the classroom from math and science backgrounds. For many students, the difficulty and abstraction of math and science make it a high-risk area for their investment of the time and energy it takes to do well considering the social stigma and other peer culture factors working against deep engagement in math and science. Teacher comprehension, passion for and ability to "sell" the difficult math and science content to students is tremendously important to getting students to assume such risk. While this slowly develops in classrooms, it could be generated with great momentum in a widespread government, community, business and media partnership via the Pathway Program. If a National Pathway Program supported events and relationships between students and mathematicians or scientists like those stated above, not interfering with the role of formal K-12 schools, in always hosting such opportunities, a greater number of students could gain valuable exposure to inspiring people and ideas at this most vulnerable time in their education. Especially in communities where the schools are slow to move on such programs, or the relationship between the school and community is strained or underdeveloped, informal, community or business-centric opportunities would allow students and parents to increase engagement and awareness in a non-threatening, real-world environment.