The Future of Science Education

This last week of presentations was not only extremely rewarding in the sense that it wrapped up nicely all the themes were were learning about this semester, but also because it was a great insight into the world of science education.

I’ve given a ton of presentations in my Wellesley career, but it’s not often than I have the presentation be to a lay audience — and so it was not just the material we had to prepare, but also how Houda, Becca, and I decided to convey the material, which probably took up the bulk of our planning. It’s these delicate details that can change everything– the small, subtle strategies, the organization of presentation, the decision of what words to emphasis and in what way, the improvisation one must convey when they realize the audience isn’t getting the message exactly as the presenters had hoped. It’s a delicate balance between delivering material that is too elementary and material that is too confounding, and an equally dizzying challenge trying to facilitateorganic aha! moments – human reaction is not so predictable as we’d think.

So this left me thinking about my own science education ever since elementary school and I am very lucky to say I’ve been gifted with many great science teachers. Even so, I don’t think I began to appreciate the connectivity of science (physics to chemistry, chemistry to biology, physical biochemistry, etc, etc – I used to make jokes about how ridiculous it was to have physical biochemistry and chemical biophysics as two distinct subjects because I didn’t understand why and how they differed!) until maybe two years ago.  And maybe it’s just me, but it’s this feeling of being connected that is what helps these rather confusing science concepts stick. This realization that it’s not all pointless knowledge (physics, hem hem) but rather it is the reason our world exists as we know it. I think it’s too much to ask that every single student ace their physics exams, but if we can appreciate why it’s interesting, important, absolutely necessary, I feel like we’ll have a better chance of remembering the content.

I would also like to take the time to discuss the importance of science educators in the community – the translators who are equally fluent in science-speak and lay-people speak. Neil  deGrasse Tyson (NdGT) is one person who comes to mind. and he is a bad-ASS (excuse my French!) !! Although I don’t really follow with his work as an astrophysicist, but I have seen him talk countless times on TV shows, panels, websites. And he has such an air about him that it’s really, really hard not to get inspired. He’s infectious, but not cheesy about it. An amazing person!

I wanted to pose this question to the class, in case someone might know — Who is the public face of biochemistry? I honestly don’t know but I wish I did, because if I had someone explain to me what it meant to meld biology and chemistry together, I might have jumped on the biochemistry track a little sooner! Again, it’s a little difficult to say all this without thinking through the logistics — biochem only really CLICKS when you’ve got the foundational chemical knowledge and the biological appreciation. All the same, I want a Neil for biochemistry because now I have 145 exciting and interesting biochemically-based stories for cocktail hour, thanks to this blog. Perhaps someone in our class will rise to the occassion 🙂

Lastly, I wanted to end with this video clip about women in science and what Neil deGrasse Tyson has to say about it. The good stuff starts at 1:01:28.

Gooood luck with finals all!!