By Sujit S. Datta, Triangle online eMag Editor-in-Chief
Science is not sexy. At least, not according to the thousands of middle school, high school, and college students who have given up on it. To them, science is not cool. Science doesn’t keep them on the edge of their seats, like a heated class debate. It doesn’t really make them feel tingles running up and down their spine, as perhaps a good Shakespeare play would. And the word ‘science’ rarely has connotations of wealth, prestige, power, or excitement. Try asking a jaded high school student whether a particular equation is ‘beautiful’, or ‘elegant’ – words frequently used by scientists – and chances are that he or she will stare at you blankly. Let’s face it – science and engineering in today’s system of education are totally and utterly boring.
Does science have to be this way? Not in the least. So what are we doing wrong? Why do we find it so impossible to convey to students the incredible thrill and exhilaration of scientific inquiry? Much of the problem lies in the way science is taught. Science is typically perceived of as being something that must be memorized, rather than understood – you have this, you do this, you do that, you get the answer. Repeat.
As Dr. Ponzy Lu, Professor of Chemistry, Chair of the College Biochemistry Program and Director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program for the Molecular Life Sciences points out: “[Science education] is very boring. It is done very badly. Much of the way chemistry is taught, say freshman chemistry, isn’t all that different from filling out income tax forms. The problem sets are simply numbers that you plug in the blanks, and the connections between the blanks aren’t that obvious. So I certainly think that science is taught in a boring way. What makes science interesting is that it allows you to be curious, and you can do things with it that finds out new stuff, and that’s the exciting stuff.”
So what do we do to change this? The answer isn’t all that simple – one cannot just flick on a switch and make everyone love science. Not all the problems with our current system have yet been identified.
What does seem clear is that science is increasingly being presented to students in a far too modular and heterogeneous form. A good example of this is the way science is taught at Penn, with different courses taken at different times, to fulfill different requirements. I can take a physics class on Newtonian mechanics, a chemistry class on the forces that hold organic molecules together, and a biology class on the biological relevance of organic polymers – all at the same time - and fail to see any connection between them. Science is not presented as one unified way of seeing and understanding the world.
Instead, as Dr. Lu points out, “It is very difficult to make a new science program from scratch. For the Vagelos program, for example, we took ‘off the shelf’ courses the way you build a bicycle with only top of the line components from different manufacturers… I think the biggest problem with science teaching at the American university - it’s even worse elsewhere - is that we don’t teach chemistry, physics, biology from one sort of foundation. Each of those departments teaches it their own way. And I think that science is not compartmental.”
So why is our current system like this, and how do we change? Dr. Lu notes that “I don’t propose teaching [science] interdisciplinary, but teaching it from first principles. I hate this word ‘interdisciplinary’ – disciplines were invented in the old days, because we were too stupid to realize that biology, chemistry, geology were all aspects of the same thing. If I were able to redo how we teach science… I would make sure that physics and mathematics get taught first without anyone learning any Biology or Chemistry. And the reason we don’t do that is left over from the 18th century, when Biology was easier, because all you had to do was observe what you saw. But Biology isn’t like that anymore, it’s about molecules and you have to know some Chemistry, and the kind of Biology by describing what you saw is not terribly useful in a variety of ways, except possibly for planting a garden or creating your own zoo. So, physics first, then mathematics – well, you can’t do physics without mathematics – and then you can learn some of those other things. That’s what I would certainly do.”
This idea has a lot going for it. The fundamentals of modern science are mathematics and physics. If students are given strong foundations in these subjects, then perhaps the scientific method and way of thinking will become clearer to them – less of a repetitive task, and with more of an emphasis on the connections and patterns between different disciplines. We must teach students how to think scientifically before we actually teach them science.
This all makes sense for students who wish to pursue science in the future, and have a natural talent for the abstractions that make up its foundations – but what about the other students, the ones to whom mathematics and physics are mere gibberish? Surely these students must have some grounding in the world of science, simply because every successful lawyer, businessman and citizen needs to know something about science (to go by the title of an existing Penn Molecular Biology course).
According to Dr. Lu, “I would teach science to a non-science student by just having them read the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times. Much of business – and one could argue all of business – these days is driven by marketing technology of some sort. If it is not marketing technology, then it is the delivery of the product that is through technology. And ask questions. We have a lot of stuff in the newspapers about biological terrorism, a lot of stuff in the newspapers about the environment, and why certain stocks go up and down. All those things have multiple layers of science and technology behind them. And basically discussing them as a case study, the way you teach medical students medicine by taking one patient at a time – you take the history, go through some tests, discuss the results of the tests and so forth. They don’t learn everything about all the sciences, but if you do that then for a year or so – say five or six stories that year – then I think you would get a lot more across to students than the way we do it. I think to a non-scientist the way to do that is to look at current events, follow them, and discuss them in detail, and bring in as much science as we need to explain the phenomena. You can certainly explain first and second derivatives using the stock market.”
Dr Lu also places enormous emphasis on educating students about their bodies and physiology: “I think what we need to be teaching students is how to use their bodies, how their bodies work, things like nutrition and diet. If that’s taught first and practiced first, then people will be aware of what’s good for them… and how this science is important to their society”. What we need to do, it seems, is to show students how relevant and influential science is to their lives.
So will any of these changes actually happen? “The current system has a lot of built-in pressures not to change,” says Dr. Lu. Perhaps we can overcome them. What is certain, however, is that the current system of science education needs reforming – and perhaps some of Dr. Lu’s suggestions are exactly what we need. We need increased discourse on this subject, increased study and an increased willingness to change. Until then, our system of science education will have to plod along the same uninspiring track it has been treading for so long.
Science is not sexy. At least, not according to the thousands of middle school, high school, and college students who have given up on it. To them, science is not cool. Science doesn’t keep them on the edge of their seats, like a heated class debate. It doesn’t really make them feel tingles running up and down their spine, as perhaps a good Shakespeare play would. And the word ‘science’ rarely has connotations of wealth, prestige, power, or excitement. Try asking a jaded high school student whether a particular equation is ‘beautiful’, or ‘elegant’ – words frequently used by scientists – and chances are that he or she will stare at you blankly. Let’s face it – science and engineering in today’s system of education are totally and utterly boring.
Does science have to be this way? Not in the least. So what are we doing wrong? Why do we find it so impossible to convey to students the incredible thrill and exhilaration of scientific inquiry? Much of the problem lies in the way science is taught. Science is typically perceived of as being something that must be memorized, rather than understood – you have this, you do this, you do that, you get the answer. Repeat.
As Dr. Ponzy Lu, Professor of Chemistry, Chair of the College Biochemistry Program and Director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program for the Molecular Life Sciences points out: “[Science education] is very boring. It is done very badly. Much of the way chemistry is taught, say freshman chemistry, isn’t all that different from filling out income tax forms. The problem sets are simply numbers that you plug in the blanks, and the connections between the blanks aren’t that obvious. So I certainly think that science is taught in a boring way. What makes science interesting is that it allows you to be curious, and you can do things with it that finds out new stuff, and that’s the exciting stuff.”
So what do we do to change this? The answer isn’t all that simple – one cannot just flick on a switch and make everyone love science. Not all the problems with our current system have yet been identified.
What does seem clear is that science is increasingly being presented to students in a far too modular and heterogeneous form. A good example of this is the way science is taught at Penn, with different courses taken at different times, to fulfill different requirements. I can take a physics class on Newtonian mechanics, a chemistry class on the forces that hold organic molecules together, and a biology class on the biological relevance of organic polymers – all at the same time - and fail to see any connection between them. Science is not presented as one unified way of seeing and understanding the world.
Instead, as Dr. Lu points out, “It is very difficult to make a new science program from scratch. For the Vagelos program, for example, we took ‘off the shelf’ courses the way you build a bicycle with only top of the line components from different manufacturers… I think the biggest problem with science teaching at the American university - it’s even worse elsewhere - is that we don’t teach chemistry, physics, biology from one sort of foundation. Each of those departments teaches it their own way. And I think that science is not compartmental.”
So why is our current system like this, and how do we change? Dr. Lu notes that “I don’t propose teaching [science] interdisciplinary, but teaching it from first principles. I hate this word ‘interdisciplinary’ – disciplines were invented in the old days, because we were too stupid to realize that biology, chemistry, geology were all aspects of the same thing. If I were able to redo how we teach science… I would make sure that physics and mathematics get taught first without anyone learning any Biology or Chemistry. And the reason we don’t do that is left over from the 18th century, when Biology was easier, because all you had to do was observe what you saw. But Biology isn’t like that anymore, it’s about molecules and you have to know some Chemistry, and the kind of Biology by describing what you saw is not terribly useful in a variety of ways, except possibly for planting a garden or creating your own zoo. So, physics first, then mathematics – well, you can’t do physics without mathematics – and then you can learn some of those other things. That’s what I would certainly do.”
This idea has a lot going for it. The fundamentals of modern science are mathematics and physics. If students are given strong foundations in these subjects, then perhaps the scientific method and way of thinking will become clearer to them – less of a repetitive task, and with more of an emphasis on the connections and patterns between different disciplines. We must teach students how to think scientifically before we actually teach them science.
This all makes sense for students who wish to pursue science in the future, and have a natural talent for the abstractions that make up its foundations – but what about the other students, the ones to whom mathematics and physics are mere gibberish? Surely these students must have some grounding in the world of science, simply because every successful lawyer, businessman and citizen needs to know something about science (to go by the title of an existing Penn Molecular Biology course).
According to Dr. Lu, “I would teach science to a non-science student by just having them read the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times. Much of business – and one could argue all of business – these days is driven by marketing technology of some sort. If it is not marketing technology, then it is the delivery of the product that is through technology. And ask questions. We have a lot of stuff in the newspapers about biological terrorism, a lot of stuff in the newspapers about the environment, and why certain stocks go up and down. All those things have multiple layers of science and technology behind them. And basically discussing them as a case study, the way you teach medical students medicine by taking one patient at a time – you take the history, go through some tests, discuss the results of the tests and so forth. They don’t learn everything about all the sciences, but if you do that then for a year or so – say five or six stories that year – then I think you would get a lot more across to students than the way we do it. I think to a non-scientist the way to do that is to look at current events, follow them, and discuss them in detail, and bring in as much science as we need to explain the phenomena. You can certainly explain first and second derivatives using the stock market.”
Dr Lu also places enormous emphasis on educating students about their bodies and physiology: “I think what we need to be teaching students is how to use their bodies, how their bodies work, things like nutrition and diet. If that’s taught first and practiced first, then people will be aware of what’s good for them… and how this science is important to their society”. What we need to do, it seems, is to show students how relevant and influential science is to their lives.
So will any of these changes actually happen? “The current system has a lot of built-in pressures not to change,” says Dr. Lu. Perhaps we can overcome them. What is certain, however, is that the current system of science education needs reforming – and perhaps some of Dr. Lu’s suggestions are exactly what we need. We need increased discourse on this subject, increased study and an increased willingness to change. Until then, our system of science education will have to plod along the same uninspiring track it has been treading for so long.
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