[Originally posted May, 15, 2009]
(This semester our class had the opportunity to have Adam Bly of Seed Media Group as a guest speaker. I asked him his opinion on the role of education in scientific literacy, specifically for the piece I wrote and posted here earlier. The following is the response he sent me. Thanks Adam!)


At the heart of how I feel about science education is the idea that science should be used as a lens through which to look at the world, not just a subject to be taught. And further; science education goes on forever and should be available to everyone.

We live in a world where we now produce more information in a year than in all prior human history combined. Graduating college no longer means you know the essentials of your field. Fields merge and change with new data. Walls between scientific disciplines are torn down. Education must run parallel with any successful pursuit of a profession. We now see universities cater to this new reality. Many universities offer their course material for free. It’s a great model. What the universities can still offer exclusively to their paying students, is valuable access to professors and a network of other students.

But the bigger picture in my view of science education is a scientifically literate nation. That’s the goal. To have a population that understands scientific concepts and processes is more crucial to the progress of our country, than churning out a certain number of scientists and engineers.

In order to translate this ideal to the classrooms, teachers and anyone else in charge of shaping curriculums, must acknowledge science as a prime driving force in society. The teaching of natural sciences should be as actively connected to and engaged in current events and advancements as the social sciences are. Science education needs to be connected to science news.

A constant interaction between industry and the education system is obviously necessary to determine what’s essential knowledge for each field. A good initiative to accomplish this is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Alliance (SEA), which arranges workshops around innovations in science education, inviting educators and experts from each field to learn and collaborate. I would also strongly encourage a more consorted effort to channel the findings of neuroscientists and social scientists that study the way we learn, into the education system.

As for the more hands on classroom experience, there are two aspects I’d like to highlight. Science is our knowledge of how the world works, and science education should lead to real understanding. There are many beautiful examples of how this is achieved. One is the story of Bob Moses, a parent in Cambridge who decided to teach algebra to his daughter’s middle school class. Upon discovering that the concepts of algebra remained abstract to the students despite weeks of training, Moses switched strategy and decided to take his students out of the classroom, around the city, matching each math problem with a real physical event. My own science education was similar. As a kid, our neighbor Dr. Kato was a scientist who took the time to show me how things worked through examples in his garden.

The other aspect is pure awe. Science uniquely lends us the ability to access the invisible. When we are empowered by science to zoom out – experience the enormity and depth of our planet and space, and zoom in – recognize the details of ourselves and the world, it humbles us in the best possible way. It evokes a sense of wonder. It gives a taste for the thrill of discovery. It shows us the systems in which things fit.

If I were in charge of setting a science curriculum, that’s what I would keep as my guiding light: the connection to the real world, the connection to science’s role in shaping the world, but, most importantly, the sheer beauty of it all.

Adam Bly
Editor-in-chief, Seed

[Updated response]

I agree with him that scientific literacy is a extremely critical. I also agree that teachers and authorities in control of curriculum must recognize their role in building the foundations for a scientifically literate society. There are many teachers whom I know personally that are doing great things in their classrooms, including hands-on learning and field trips integrated with science content.

I also would like point out that these teachers are usually at schools that are already more progressive than others, and are typically also not public schools. Schools whose students have a hard time keeping up in math and reading may not have the resources to bulk up their science programs. Math and reading often trumps science, even though as Adam Bly implied, it has a more intuitive driving force which is the want to understand our world which we are in awe of.

There are so many things working against science education, which includes lack of funding, resources, but also lack of support from our culture. In many parts of the country, people’s views on evolution have pitted religious communities against the scientific community. This is a large waste of time and effort, in my opinion, but it is still a reality that must be dealt with. I often think about how the cultural barriers may be overcome, and it has brought be back to many of the points Adam Bly made in his commentary, but also I think a lot about Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, which some scientists are working on updating.

It is an interesting psychological and philosophical question of whether we can take on these larger issues without first fulfilling the first few rungs of the hierarchy (physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization). I would argue that many people in our country are stuck at the 3rd and 4th rungs (love/belonging and esteem) and that thinking about bigger things, like the beauty of the world and environment we live in, do not occur until we reach the last rung of self-actualization.

While on my trip last week out to the West Coast to visit my cousin before attending a wedding, I had the opportunity to check out the new building for the California Academy of Sciences that opened last September in San Francisco.

For me, the most notable parts are the “Living Roof” (which is a green roof that spans most of the roof with native California plants and a viewing deck), the planetarium, and the rainforest. The latter two compliment each other in size and are two of the main attractions for the museum. There is also an aquarium that I didn’t get a chance to spend very much time in. Hopefully I will be able to make it out there again to see the rest!

I didn’t get a chance to see all of the panels along the sides of the planetarium and the rainforest, but it seemed that the theme was global warming and climate change. The planetarium show was also focused on protecting our planet along those lines.

I would have liked to see what people’s reactions were to the content in the exhibits. The general feeling in California is very open to talk about the environment and human impacts. People seem to care a lot more about their role in the big picture and how things develop in their state.

It was exciting to see so many people in the California Academy of Sciences taking advantage of the great resources and exhibits. Hopefully, I will get to spend more time there and in California in general the next time I get to make the trip.


More pictures to come! (I absentmindedly left my camera at my cousin’s house, so it might take a little while to fulfill this promise.) Here is a NY Times Slideshow for more photos in the meantime!


Special thanks to my cousin Jing Fong Jacobs for taking me around and being a great hostess!


Image credit:

http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2009/02/a-trip-to-the-california-academy-of-sciences-slideshow.php

http://www.iconocast.com/EB000000000000033/I0/News4.htm

I just started reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma about a year and a half ago and found it very perspective-changing so I am looking forward to what this book will have to say.

The first few chapters have focused on discussion of the ideology behind “nutritionism.” Pollan points out that this is not a scientific term, though there is “food science” that is involved.

Nutritionists and food scientists seem to have an unusual amount of power over the thoughts, perceptions, and actions of the general public. The pervading misconception is that the key to understanding food is to look at the nutrients and break it down in a reductionist manner, or, as Pollan puts it, that “foods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts.”

This has manifested itself in the excessive amounts of specific and confusing labeling for processed food products in the supermarkets. Things like “omega-3” and “no-trans fat” grace the covers of all kinds of products, but do consumers really understand what they are getting? And is it their fault if they do not?

The industry would have us think that any thing that they sell is “healthy,” ever since the fear of eating unhealthily struck the nation. With things being said to be linked to heart disease and obesity, it is hard to avoid letting that line of thinking slip into our subconscious.

The reality is that the science rarely supports these claims with strong enough evidence to advise any type of change in dietary preferences. The evidence may be suggestive, but the consumer doesn’t pick that up in the translation (which relates to the scientific literacy issue, not enough people understand the process of science).

Pollan describes the history of changes that occurred to bring nutritionism to its current status. One point he makes that I agree with is that the industry has made it a battle between “good” and “bad” nutrients. Somehow, eating certain food items could reduce a “bad” nutrient, or provide a “good” one. Food scientists usually don’t know enough about any one nutrient in a food product to be able to say for certain that it is good or bad, but they can usually say that a type of food is good or detrimental for one’s health.

For instance, it is good for humans to eat a lot of vegetables, but to eat less meat. We’ve known that for ages. That is why we are omnivores. We can say we need the protein, the vitamins, etc. in meat and vegetables, but we really can’t say for sure what else we are getting from eating whole foods. Our knowledge is not yet complete.

One example is the infant milk formula. It still is not perfected, because there are things in natural human milk that we have not been able to find or replicate (antibodies or other things).

We tend to think we know what we need, or that we can trust the professionals to tell us what we need, but that is very naïve of us.

I’m looking forward to reading more of the book! Take a look at it some time to hear more of Pollan’s ideas and I will for sure be posting more entries about it.

Image credit: michaelpollan.com

That might sound like a strange idea, but it is possible! The Science Barge is a floating farm museum, currently docked in Yonkers, NY, that aims to bring awareness about urban farming. They claim to grow tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers with zero carbon emissions, zero pesticides, and zero runoff. Thousands of schoolchildren, adults, and press people have visited the barge since it opened in 2007.

They use hydroponics to grow their vegetables, which is also a large component of vertical farming. When I spoke to Dickson Despommier, he implied that large scale urban or indoor farming is not possible without hydroponic technology. Considering the lack of space or soil in New York City, I tend to agree with him, though I am not an expert on hydroponics.


The barge presents an interesting way to get the public interested in urban farming. Though it is just a museum, it is a great step in the right direction to getting people to think about getting their food through low-impact methods. If hydroponic farming could be done on a larger scale, either through more barges or vertical farming, the barge has the important role of easing this idea into the public eye. Education is key!


For more pictures of the Science Barge, check out this New York Times slideshow or Flickr slideshow.


(On a side note, a friend recently gave me a copy of the book The Lorax signed by Dickson Despommier as a graduation gift!)

Image credit: NYSunworks.org

“Can you explain stem cell research to me?”

This is not what you would normally hear on the car ride back to campus, after a week of on Spring Break. You might think we’d be talking about the Ultimate Frisbee tournament we just played at, the nice beach that we stayed near, or anything on the crazy list of happenings.

So, as any good shotty should, I entertained my driver with a brief account of stem cell research. Considering how much stem cell research has been in the news lately, it may not be all that surprising that this conversation actually happened.

But if you didn’t have someone science-y handy, how many people would care enough to take the time to actually find out the details?

With issues like stem cell research frequently appearing in the headlines of most news outlets in the country, it is becoming more and more important for the average citizen to understand scientific concepts in order to form their own opinions on the subjects. Not unlike other areas of interest, level of education seems to play a large role in the depth at which they can understand a scientific concept.

My companion at the wheel, Joe, is a graduate student at Teacher’s College, hoping to get a gig teaching English in high school next year. Joe is a non-science major, but he finds value in understanding science-related current issues. So what is the current status of science and scientific literacy among young adults?


To get a general feel for the situation, I set out to make a rough study of my peers. I created an online survey to assess the level of interest in and understanding of science among current college students, as well as some people who have been out of school for a number of years. Respondents were mostly people that I reached through social networking sites and word of mouth. I also set up 8 interviews with current and recent Columbia University students to get a better sense of how Columbia’s Core Curriculum fares in all of this, specifically the course “Frontiers of Science” – FoS. Many of the respondents and interviewees were friends or acquaintances so this exercise is nowhere near rigorous enough to compare with full scientific study. However, I am confident that the responses are honest and can give some indication of the general situation.

Nearly half of the 122 survey respondents claimed that they had a good enough general understanding of science to explain concepts to others. However, when asked to rate their understanding of several specific science topics, respondents generally were slightly less confident in their knowledge. The topics that people were most and least confident in knowledge of were evolution and space/Mars exploration, respectively.

The university can be the place where young students gain a worldview that includes science, or it can be the place that scared someone away from trying to enter the realm of the scientific perspective. I remember my freshman year of undergraduate (not at Columbia University) as being quite stressful. In addition to having to take Molecular Biology, I was also required to take Organic Chemistry. Both were very in-depth, hardcore science courses that could be considered “weed-out” courses.

I managed to make it through my first year, but it was a harsh introduction to college studies. While I understand the reasoning for this type of structure, it may not be ideal for interested individuals who are not looking to major in science but are instead fulfilling a science elective requirement. Non-science majors may get lost when the goal of an introductory course is not clearly meant to help them fill in the science background they may have missed in high school.

On the other end of the spectrum, introductory science courses can be super fluffy and only provide superficial coverage of topics. The difficulty that FoS faces is the broad target that is the student body. All of the first years are lumped together, science and non-science majors, creating an underlying conflict between those who aren’t getting anything from the course and those who don’t understand enough to get anything out of it; thus there is an inherent flaw in the structure of the course.

One interviewee says, “You have to try to simultaneously make it hard enough so that it’s interesting, challenging so that it is interesting, but easy enough so that like everyone gets it. Really I don’t know that there is much that you can do to save the class, because the concept of it is really flawed.”

It could be possible to restructure FoS by not trying to accomplish so much within one semester, “but maybe focus on hard analysis of a few things. Just so college students can really appreciate the scientific mindset that you need and not look at science as just memorizing a passage from a book.”

The course itself, as it stands, plows through several topics a semester, often jumping from one subject to another from one week to the next. This format may make it difficult for anything to sink in during the process, and may only further turn non-science majors off from going deeper into science from lack of purpose. I am certain I would not feel satisfied with it, especially if the instructors seemed to only aim to get through the material rather than foster growth of scientific understanding.


I know that I often feel more motivated in a class when the instructor was enthusiastic, whereas, when that was not the case, I may put less effort into assignments and exams. The vibe that instructors are less interested in teaching the material than the students are in learning it is a common sentiment among the respondents. It could be an influential factor for students that are on the borderline between understanding science or not, and generally being interested or not in science and related issues in the future.

This brings up the question of whether students unfamiliar with science should be separated from those who need to take a hard science course. Instructors may feel less enthusiastic about teaching introductory courses, but those may be the crucial courses for students who have not yet found their paths. Though I am not particularly good at physics and distinctly recall my physics courses from my junior year of undergraduate as being particularly grueling, the instructors were so fantastic that I still found myself enjoying lectures and labs. They were able to do this by making the topics relevant to my life and things I am familiar with.

An interviewee says, “I feel more educated about it because I know like some of the stuff now. But it makes me appreciate the scale of what’s happening. The fact that we can launch a space shuttle to the International Space Station, I’m amazed by this sort of stuff now.” A survey respondent talked about how astronomy and psychology courses gave them a “new perspective on the world I live in.”


In my own case, I do not remember when I came to those similar realizations, but a large part of it may have been the opportunity to leave my hometown for college and also to leave the country to study abroad. When I was able to leave my comfort zone and realize that my personal daily problems were so much smaller in comparison to what is happening on a global scale, my whole viewpoint and outtake on life changed.

So it seems topics that relate to the student’s life or that show them something they’ve never thought about can be worthwhile and transformative experiences. But that is not always enough to encourage them to pursue science as a personal interest.

Some might say that these educational interests of university students could be manifested later on as a societal divide between the sciences and the humanities. “So there’s a divide,” says one interviewee, “between the societal marriage of more art and cultural knowledge, which is seen as intelligent to most people, and science, which is seen as something else.

“And,” he continues, “you have to be more of a scientific creature to even like or appreciate that. Whereas I would go and read a novel or go to a play, not as many people would go and read a scientific paper for fun, or would not be as interested or curious about things like that.”


Columbia’s humanities core courses are extensive explorations of history, philosophy, and literature. They lay the foundation for much of the future coursework that the students will take and also give the first year class a sense of community by putting them through the same required readings, assignments, etc. As one student puts it, “You actually get a sense of the whole Western canon, like philosophy and literature. Then when you read other stuff, you understand where it comes from because you’ve read all these classics that the other authors have read.”

In this aspect, FoS is the most different. FoS attempts to familiarize the students with the course’s namesake, the frontiers of contemporary science. They cover topics such as astronomy, evolution, biodiversity, string theory, and quantum mechanics.

An interviewee, who is a science major, talks about his qualms with this aspect of the structure of the course: “They treat science unfairly by assuming you need to know the frontier of science to be in the loop whereas all the other core classes are the history of philosophy, the history of literature. They should teach the basic things to give people more grounding so that they can understand it.”

“What if,” he continues, “it was more about the history of science and the philosophy of science incorporated into basic science as well as cutting edge science…it would be really interesting.”

One student says, “but it’s just different with science, you know? Cause not everyone’s good at it.”

But why is that the case? Why is not everyone “good” at science? And when did we get “good” at the humanities when science was left behind?

It could have something to do with earlier experiences in the education system. There may be many pivotal periods during early and middle education that serve as formative experiences. One of the interviewees remembers a third grade teacher who influenced her so greatly that she credits her open-mindedness for science to those early experiences.


Of all my early elementary and middle school years, the science parts are the least memorable. I remember reading books that significantly changed the way I thought, like 1984 when I was in eighth grade. But no science, and yet I still find myself majoring in a science field. Was it something inherent in me that would have manifested itself eventually no matter what course I took? Did others have the similar experiences?

A graduating Columbia senior says, “If I hadn’t been lucky enough to have had some positive exposure to science and math way back in the day, I probably would’ve been turned off [to] those subjects while taking my intro college courses. Those courses were pretty uninspired, and I thought they focused too much on delivering the requisite information to the students – not enough on opening their eyes to the beauty and relevance of its application.”

“Weirdly,” she continues, “I see the world much more artistically and generally in the context of science; though one would ostensibly have a more rigid, calculated view of the world when looking at it with a scientific eye, I think science helps me to notice all the ‘other parts’ more readily.”


I can only speculate that other students may not have had the same opportunities and access to teachers who could give science a fair chance. I often marvel at how lucky I have been to manage to stumble my way through high school, undergraduate, and eventually through graduate school. Along the way, I have somehow discovered where my interests lie and what my skills are. Part of the beauty of the process was that I was able to try many things with an open mind, and I enjoyed it not necessarily because my teachers were enthusiastic about science but because I had the chance to find out if I was enthusiastic about learning it.

Science courses throughout a student’s journey through the education system may impact their worldview and general mentality; this at least has been true for myself. I eventually figured out that I enjoyed ecology, and then that I am passionate about environmental issues with a focus on the human impact. I am sure that I would not have found my way to where I am without taking those first steps towards biology and then to ecology, and finally to conservation biology. I’m not the same person I was when I started, but I’m closer to being who I am meant to be.


As graduation day nears, I have been thinking a lot about my future. The prospects are not looking great in this economy, but I have an interesting skill set that I think could make me a strong candidate for the things I want to do. I may be considered a scientist by training, but I am not looking to get into research or academia where those skills would be used. Another point is that the skills acquired from studies in the humanities more readily translate to a job or role in our society.

Reading, writing, and critical thinking are skills that most people will need when they join the workforce, but understanding scientific concepts and mechanisms is surely not as high a priority for being a responsible member of society. This may pose a problem when current events and issues are science related.

One interviewee said, “The only thing I think people need to know in terms of scientific literacy is that if they read something that politicians say or someone in power says that they should do, I feel like before they do anything about it, they need to learn about it.”

“On one hand,” says another interviewee, “I think it is pretty important for people to understand what’s going on around them but on the other hand I think some people just don’t have the time to devote to understanding what is going on. But I think college kids should definitely know because they have a lot of free time. So I think that it is important for college students to, but I wouldn’t expect like an adult to understand everything going on.”

The general feeling about scientific literacy is that science is a different type of intellectual endeavor than the humanities or other general interests. However, for this generation, the Internet has had a large impact on how information is acquired and could become more important for learning and communication. One interviewee has this motto: “Life is a giant wikiquest,” just because he spends an hour on Wikipedia each day. So the pursuit of scientific knowledge no longer needs to occur in the classroom with textbooks.

But the one obstacle that remains is the barrier for the permeation of science into daily life and conversation. One Columbia sophomore says, “I guess the very fact that I never talk about it or talk about things suggests that we are not very scientifically literate or I’m not friends with scientifically literate people.”


Recall my friend Joe, for whom I sat shotty on the ride home from spring break. He is in the circle of friends with whom I rarely talk about science with. However, Joe drives a hybrid as an expression of being environmentally and socially aware, so he may already be considerably more susceptible to scientific concepts and scientific thinking. In the future, I hope I can again serve as a bit of a bridge for my friends into the scientific perspective.

I never thought I would, but I find myself considering applying for PhD programs, mostly for ones in interdisciplinary settings that will involve the environment, resources, and social sciences. I can trace my choices back to a somewhat arbitrary decision as a high school senior to major in Biology when I moved on to undergraduate studies. Who would have thought that things would turn out the way that they have?

My journey as a student of science has greatly shaped my perspective on the world and I hope that I can help others find the beauty in understanding some of the science behind it. One of my goals is to educate the people around me about scientific concepts that are interesting and relevant to current events and issues. I hope that, eventually, I can contribute to solving problems of the world that will require the type of thinking that incorporates perspectives from many fields, including science, economics, and cultural studies.

One way that I have begun this effort is by starting this science blog, through which I hope to bring insight to science and topics relevant in today’s world and encourage discussion of how they relate to our daily lives. Hopefully, through my efforts and those of hundreds of like-minded science popularizers and educators, the overall understanding and appreciation of scientific issues will steadily grow and develop as our society advances so that perhaps, one day, many of these science concepts become “household names.”






Previous posts about this piece:
http://chewbear.beforebreakfast.net/2009/04/27/update-scientific-literacy/
http://chewbear.beforebreakfast.net/2009/04/17/scientific-literacy/

I’m still working on that piece on scientific literacy for my writing about science course. I mentioned it in an earlier post.
Here are some of the parts and quotes that I have cut out:

• A recent Columbia graduate comments on her experience in a course called “Better Planet By Design,” saying that, “It made me realize that we can have a lot more of an effect on the environment than I realized. I mean I knew we were contributing to all these things like global warming, but I thought the situation was kind of hopeless. Are we really going to stop using fossil fuels and all this stuff then I learned that there were a lot of things that really can make a large effect and I thought that was really interesting.”
• “So that’s a problem if you are trying to encourage children to like science, like maths. To be able to do them, to not be afraid of them. If you’re someone who has gotten into a field specifically because you are afraid of it or you don’t have as much of an interest, it’s going to cause problems when trying to get other people interested in it.”
• “I think that there is a lot of involvement of politics with science that people almost don’t care to look into because they have some emotional investment in holding their viewpoint especially with stem cell research and evolution versus creationism. Like somehow conflicts with their religion.”
• “It’s sort of like they are finding science to back up their preexisting sort of moral ideas and I feel like when someone reads something that backs up something they already think, what’s like a widely held societal norm like say about gender roles, like about adolescence and what that means in society or something, that you don’t want to look any further because it already confirmed what you already thought.”
• “I think that when you have a little bit more knowledge and have read scientific studies about biological mechanisms and how these things actually work and how studies are done, then you have a better sense when you are reading the newspaper about whether the alarming statistic you are reading is actually alarming. You could think a little more critically about whether it’s just correlation and not causation.”

I’m handing in a second draft today, but the final draft should be done by the end of this week. Hopefully I will post it here soon after!

I am working on a piece about scientific literacy! This is for a course on writing about science.

I sent around this survey to gather a sense of what people in my generation know about science and what they thought about their core science classes.

Some of the responses are quite interesting. Here are a few quotes:

• “The lectures covered really interesting material, but too often the professors failed to make it interesting. Labs were excessively long and filled with lots of busy work.”
• “On one hand I think it is pretty important for people to understand what’s going on around them but on the other hand I think some people just don’t have the time to devote to understanding what is going on. But I think college kids should definitely know because they have a lot of free time. So I think that it is important for college students to but I wouldn’t expect like an adult to understand everything going on.”
• “The only think I think people need to know in terms of scientific literacy is that if they read something that politicians say or someone in power says that they should do, I feel like before they do anything about it, they need to learn about it.”
• “Yeah, the media has a big role and people can’t take what they hear from the media at first glance. Like when I said I like understanding everything around me, I go on Wikipedia and type in random stuff like constantly, when I hear about something in the news. The thing under my facebook says “life is a giant wikiquest” just because I spend like an hour on wikipedia every day.”

The piece will probably end up being about 3000 words. I’ll probably post it here at some point. Currently, I’m working on a second draft for next week. If you have any thoughts to contribute, I would be interested to read them!

On a side note, I mentioned in my first post that I met Adam Bly of Seed Media Group (publisher of SEED magazine). So I emailed Adam Bly the next day to ask him his thoughts on some of these issues. I haven’t gotten a response from him yet, but yesterday a coworker of his emailed to let me know that he is still interested in sending a reply but may take a little while longer to get back to me. That is exciting! I was not expecting to hear from him at all, so that was a nice surprise. Hopefully, he sends me a response within the next week so I can really try to incorporate it into my piece.

Anberlin – Burn Out Brighter (Northern Lights)