Georgetown forum; Future scientists and their teachers

Future scientists and their teachers. The topic for the eleven hundred ten fifty six consecutive broadcast of the Georgetown University radio forum. Another in a series of educational and informative programs from Washington D.C. The Georgetown forum was founded in 1946. This is Ross Manning speaking to you by transcription from the Raymond Rice studio on the campus of Georgetown University historic Jesuit seat of learning in the nation's capital. Today's discussion will be future scientists and their teachers participating are Dr. Phoebe nipping a science supervisor for the Arlington County Virginia public school system. Mr. Morris likened fellow of the Washington academy of sciences and professor of the history of medicine in the graduate program of the foundation for advanced education in the sciences the National Institutes of Health. And Mr. Grover Sherilyn hydraulic engineer National Bureau of Standards. Despite rapid gains in the physical sciences during the past generation there is

a rather alarming trend among students today to shy away from experimental sciences. Educators have seen this downward trend and have tried to find ways to encourage and help young people to get interested at an early age and to avoid the fear that keeps many from undertaking a career in fields of study that have grown more complicated and difficult with progress. The responsibility lies not only with science teachers in the elementary and secondary schools but with the professional scientist who must meet with young students and show them ways of research that science teachers do not have time to explain in other words. The young scientist of today must begin early and work outside the classroom in order to become a professional scientist in college and graduate school. Fortunately there are professional scientists who realize the need and who give liberally of their time to assist young students with science projects. We have three such scientists on our panel

today to discuss their reasons for making such a personal sacrifice for the future scientists of the world. We're going to begin by finding out what they do. And we'll ask Mr. Mr. Sharon too what does he do to help young scientists. With the time put on science education for the greater Washington area I have contact with over 300 secondary schools providing them with various types of services which I think we will probably describe more fully in this period. I have particular involvement with the Prince George's science fair association which brings together each year approximately 20000 students involved in science project work and assist in the

educational activities of both the Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Washington Academy of Sciences. It was here on the down how many students does this bring you into contact with each year would you say are you able to estimate direct contact I think might be measured through the science fairs. The last few years I've managed to be a judge in 12 or more science fairs and so I would say in personal contact with maybe a thousand. Thank you Dr. Nicholas. Well I'm kind of a dual purpose I have a professional I am a science supervisor. The secondary schools in Arlington County which indirectly brings me with in touch with all of the students in these secondary schools but mostly through

working with the teachers. I have also for the Post's twelve or fourteen years been director of one of the sections of the Northern Virginia science fairs. I think that the there is great satisfaction in seeing the youngsters have the feeling of accomplishment and the feeling that they have done something on their own and are able to have it noticed whether recognized by words or not just like them. I would like to begin by pointing out and I think I speak for all of us here on the panel that we are not making a sacrifice in what we are trying to do for the future scientists

of not only America but of the world. The reason I say this is that as scientists and as teachers it is not only our job to make discoveries. Looking toward the advancement of science it is also part of our job to train on coming generations of scientists so that they can continue the scientific. And Devore science is a cumulative enterprise and if we do not participate actively in bringing up the next generation of scientists then I feel that we have not done the entire job that we should do. My own particular field as a historian of science and medicine is concerned with attempting to understand and explain how science has reached the point that it has

at the present time. Who are the great discoveries of the past how did they go about making their discoveries and so on. And that's to my mind it's exceedingly important particularly for young people because if we want to get young people interested in going into science one of the techniques that I think we ought to exploit more fully is that of providing young people with heroes that they can look up to a man of science who have done important and significant things in the advancement of science but yet portray them not in the science fiction manner of being. Cold blooded individuals with computers above the collar buttons instead of brains but portraying them as human beings as individuals who had difficulties to solve to portray how they solved their difficulties how they came to make their discoveries

how they did the things for which they are remembered. If we can succeed in doing this then I think we will have made some contribution toward developing the kind of scientists that we need and at the same time for those people who are not going to become scientists because we have to remember that of all the people that come through the classes in elementary science. A very small number become scientists. The historical approach is one method of providing an awareness of what science is and how it operates for the individual. Will become a lawyer an accountant a baseball player whatever we live in a scientific world and we have to understand what this world is and how it operates and one way of doing that is through the historical approach.

You're not going to win that ever as you were saying that is not a personal sacrifice like so many things that to an outsider it may look like a personal sacrifice but anything worthwhile that we become involved is it's personal satisfaction instead of a personal sacrifice. And I think you hit on a very strong point there that we are in thanking the scientists for the future. We need to give them the background of what is going on in the past but we need to get them involved in doing something because this is what they. They remember once they had been involved in doing something and doing something on their own. We are concerned in developing a silence literate citizenry rather than to pick out the number of scientists that we need. We think we will need to pick these out in the early grades and train them.

We are interested in getting all of the people science knowledgeable to talk to middling them from your vantage point within the secondary public school system in Arlington County in Virginia. Do you agree that there is a serious lack of interest on the part of too many students as regards the experimental scientists I think so many times when they make that statement we're overlooking something in modern education. Teenagers now have so many more interests than they did 25 years ago. There is so much there's so many more exciting things going on in all of the areas of the curriculum. If we were talking to the music people they would probably say there's a decline in the interest in music or art decline in art our history.

But I think that that students now are getting a broader education and they are well this is this is the way it should be. So they become interested in many things and are not maybe as specialized in one field of interest as they were at one time. But I'm not discouraged by their interest in many many things. Is there any increase in interest on the part of the students as a result of that. Fantastically successful scientific experiment like that in which we were to move on and come to man return to Earth this same to excite interest. Yes I think it does I think it excites interest not only with the students in science classes but those that are not in science quizes. And I think that just like that there are so many more areas in the curriculum now and when you say

one of the things that's facing educators there's still only a certain number of hours in the day. But there are many more things to include in that day. So one of the things that we as educators must face is not necessarily trying to get more hours of the day devoted to silence. But we must be concerned with making better use of the hours that a student can devote to science in his modern good you will generalize. Education which includes a science that you speak of. Is that going to answer the the problem for scientific specialists in the future. I think that if we train youngsters early and I mean before they get to secondary and scientific attitude the search for truth the how to go about searching for truth that they if we can enable them to make the decisions

scientifically at their particular age level then they will be able to decide whether they should be sun and it's not everybody who's interested in science at the age of 11 should become assigned it. I think it would be a mistake to do route them in a paper and train them only as it's just your own. I was thinking in terms of some of the great scientists of the past who have. Blossomed forth at many periods of the lifespan. Some of them we would class as being a genius because they gained their fame a very tender age 12 14 years of age or something like that. But many others didn't find there. Place in the timeless

records until they were in their middle ages. Some even wedded to their past 60. So I think that it's not important that we be concerned as to what age the youngsters will find their place in science but that we provide a good broad education in science. And then as they mature the individuals will fit into the particular place that is available to them at the moment. And I think many times it's not the scientists who start out to be great they become great he just starts out with a tremendous. Curiosity scientific curiosity. And suddenly he he finds his his thing shall we say. And this is the

one aspect that I feel strongest about that the we let the youngster have the opportunity to explore or to experiment to search to read as much as he possibly can and to have the association with a scientist practicing in the field. And this is actually the form that I would program in this Washington area takes. Do you have something there where you said that in referring to these kids about the spark of genius and I think this is very important. I think that. Some people may think you know that locate these kids with the spark of genius and cultivate them and make those are scientists. But for every one of these for there is a spark of genius you're going to find dozens more that are having a little ignition trouble and there is where the help is

needed because once with the help from the scientists and from the teachers and from parents and the encouragement and getting once they get their engine in in working order. There are now have a much more productive performance than some of these with these sharp spark of genius. They can be more consistent and make a greater contribution. Most are like well it seems to me that this is an additional argument for attempting to spread or what you might call the scientific point of view more thoroughly and more completely through the entire curriculum and other words that science has to be. Become a more important part of

a new individual's education regardless of what he does we've had for too long a dichotomy between the so-called humanities and the sciences which we need to break down. For example you just made the point about BE EPIC right which are the astronauts around the moon rather that might not inspire some more people to want to go into science. It may or may not but I think we have to wait for the effects of that for a while I think it's more important for example for this discovery to inspire an English major to want to write a poem. I bought this buy it in the same way that Homer wrote his famous Odyssey. When we reach that point the English majors begin to use

scientific subject matter for their part prefer their literature and so on. I think then we will be reaching a point where we can recognise that scientists becoming part of our culture and accessible as a nation that I think is going to take a little bit of time it's going to take a little bit of doing but I think that is the sort of thing that we ought to aim at. For example another area complaint have been vice prime time or another that the newspapers do not report scientists adequately The example is given that day in any newspaper. We devote many more pages to sports than we do to reporting scientific news and which is correct but we have to remember that the average newspaper editor is a man who has had in most cases very little scientific background most of his training consummate School of Journalism. And so as a result of his training and the fact that he does not

have a sufficient scientific background he arranges the paper to meet the needs of what he thinks are his readers. There is a drought which is sometimes told about a young son of an editor who said to his father Daddy read is an editor is he a man who decides what to put in the paper and father said No my son he's an editor who keeps things out. And we find here again that when we get an adequate culture a base for the scientists so that we have scientifically trained editors for example we might find that the science news in a newspaper where occupies much space at the spot page that's one thing I would point out with regard to that from my experiences in journalism is frequently when we go to scientists who we under what we are given to understand have made some gigantic step forward in in a particular

research area for example. We find that he's either really not able to understand what he's saying to us or he's unable to articulate what he's done so that we can get it into the press or into radio or television whatever it happens to be. Understandably. And so there's that problem I guess. That's the problem from me other side. I simply want to add I yeah I'm very well aware of that fact and that difficulty that problem. And I think that again goes back to our method of science teaching in the sense that unfortunately in many areas scientists or would be scientists don't have enough. Training in the method of communication to explain their discoveries and their it seems to me that

some background in the history of science becomes significant because when you understand the development and highroad discoveries have been made and how they have developed you're in a better position to explain to a non-scientist what it is you're doing and why you're doing it and how are the discovery came about to see one of the difficulties we have in explaining science to non scientists to do to differentiate between the order of presentation material where the order of discovery and if we can separate out those two we find out that quite often the way a man has gone about making his discovery is not the way it's presented in a scientific paper he sits down and sort of cleans it up presented in logical so-called cookbook fashion and people grow up with the idea that this is the way scientific discoveries are made. They're not made that way. If you really want to find scientific discoveries made you go back into the history of it and you study the mistakes that a man has made.

All the blind alleys he's followed up and down before he finally came out sometimes a man will get a flash of intuition. He will think up. Have an idea and then proceed to work his way by gosh and by guess until he finally comes to the answer. But when his fam comes to write this op for example he'll write it up in a logical fashion you see giving giving people the idea that there is a so-called scientific method. There is no such thing as a scientific method it's a particular way of approaching your material where you have to try all sorts of things and finally arrive at a result and when scientists are able to explain things in this way I think that there will be a better report between the journalists and the scientists and thereby the general public will have a better idea of what I am going to be the working scientists and public relations but coming back

to the idea of the future scientists. And their teachers and what we can do this all is important in training the future scientists. But one of the things to keep young people interested is getting them involved in doing something themselves and by combining the study of the case histories of the great discoveries and then at the same time they're having an opportunity to do some experimenting of their own and trying finding some of their own arrows when they make their own mistakes these are the ones they're going to remember and keep learning how to keep records of their own mistakes and their own discoveries. And this is is very very important. And I think that here is where the teachers the parents

and scientists that we all have the responsibility to give the encouragement to the youngsters and make every opportunity to get them involved. I think parents have a great responsibility I think we as parents determine whether or not. Us are equipped with laboratories they have the facilities so that the youngsters can do something in the way of their own experiments of their own. So here is where I think that we have to we is as parents and as teachers and the scientists must work to get young people involved now so that we will have futures. I follow that line of thinking. The one thing that I would like to contribute is

that as a youngster it takes on a project to become involved in. I'd like for him to think of the doing it for the fun of it and not because he thinks it's going to lead him to greatness because. Being involved for the fun is the part that may lead to success. The the situations that I've seen where the youngster is trying to win a prize is an unfortunate situation. I would like for the parents to know that there are many ways that they can be helpful to their youngsters. Don't do the project for them but provide them with all sorts of. Of an environment that would encourage their involvement in a in a project to work area. For instance materials and things like that. Even assisting them to carry out part of the functions of experimental thing but always give credit to the for having had assistance from wherever they might find it.

Have there been any changes doctor knew going in the way these courses are presented in public schools yes in terms of interesting the story but it's been really a revolution in teaching. Well in general away from the descriptive to discovery and Wade involving students and there's all the difference in the world in the the interest among the students but the school budgets do not expand at the same rate that the interest of the students so they still have to do some of the things on their own. It requires a lot of a lot of equipment. But these various national curriculum development projects have really just done wonders to to make the courses more interesting away from this all descriptive stuff.

And I think this is this has been a big boost and I think that that if we encourage the youngsters that have the interest in this but include a large large number we would have nothing to fear for the future number of future scientists that are needed. Mr. Reich and you said a few minutes ago that it was going to take some time and a lot of doing it in 30 seconds. Just what specifically would you suggest the doing. Well I think that one of the areas that we need to concentrate more on is in the. Preparation of the teachers of the future scientists I think that there is no real substitute for a dedicated gun and there was the acting teacher to spark youngsters into a scientific theory I could give

many examples but it just is no time to illustrate this particular point. The teacher I think is one of the most important elements in this development. Interested teachers and interested parents thank you very much Dr. Phoebe nipping the science supervisor of the Arlington County Virginia Public School System Mr. Maurice lichened fellow at the Washington Academy of Sciences and mr grover Sherilyn hydraulic engineer and National Bureau of Standards. You have attended the weekly discussion program the Georgetown University radio forum broadcaster which was transcribed in the Raymond Rice studio on the campus of historic Georgetown University in Washington D.C.. Next week you will hear discussed as others see us on our panel at that time. We'll include international students. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Address the station to which you are listening.

This program has been presented in the interest of public education by Georgetown University. Your moderator. WALLACE fanning this program was distributed by the national educational radio network.