SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
Efforts To Promote Public Understanding of Science Continue • Symposium highlights concerns of educators and presents ideas for integrating scientists into community learning projects
^i^i^i^i^ WASHINGTON, O.C. • W W T T hat constitutes science litera^ m / cy and how to achieve it re• • main ill-defined. However, attempts to define science illiteracy as well as efforts to combat it abound. Some of the current thinking on these topics was aired at a symposium sponsored by the Division of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. One of the more striking concepts to emerge from the symposium was the idea that scientists themselves may be among the more scientifically illiterate. Of course, it all depends on the definition of science and literacy. The current concern with science literacy stems in part from a perceived need for more scientists and engineers to staff future industrial, research, and academic institutions. The need follows from the perceived threat to U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace. This threat has been acknowledged to be somewhat speculative but //competitiveness,,, "globalization of business/7 and "economic warfare" are among the buzzwords and phrases used to justify many things, including greater science literacy. At least two of the speakers, Robert M. Hazen, of George Mason University, Fairfax, Va., and Sheila Tobias, a lecturer at the University of Arizona, equate science illiteracy with the failure of Americans to understand enough science to make the political decisions required of them. Tobias has spent 15
years trying to overcome "math anxiety" among students. She has found that, even among the brightest students, their aversion to science and math is probably more the result of poor selling of the subjects than poor teaching, although the teaching leaves much to be desired as well. In Tobias' view, the student is not permitted to enter the world of meaning, appreciation, or criticism of science. One is "in" or "out" and only the precommitted few wind up practicing the craft. Tobias also believes that Visiting dayat a middle school for 3M's STEP program the professoriat prevents science from being presented as a liberal exceptions become the scientists. No art. This, she claims, eventually causes wonder, he laments, that so few Ameri"widespread ignorance of the subject cans want to be scientists. '"What other and a counterelitism that makes igno- academic discipline makes its students feel like failures?" rance a kind of trophy." Hazen notes that the U.S. ranks first in The remedies that Tobias proposes for overcoming the ignorance that exists in- producing specialists—those with reclude greater participation by the scien- search skills—but at a great price of gentifically illiterate. She also advocates that eral science literacy. This probably can't adults continue their science learning continue much longer. National science process even after they have completed leaders, he explains, have fostered edutheir formal education. She suggests that cational policies so concerned with proprofessional societies such as the Ameri- ducing the next generation of specialists can Chemical Society could help with that the education of the 99% who are not going to be scientists has been totalthis task. Hazen believes that the problem of ly ignored. This policy has turned off scientific ignorance boils down to misdi- potential science students in record rected priorities of scientists themselves. numbers. The solution, Hazen says, is straightTo most scientists, the crisis in science education reduces to the failure to train forward. All nonscience students should more scientists. That belief, he says, take a general science course in their first seems to mean that everyone should be year of college, and follow it with a laba scientist. He wants a more worthy goal oratory course in one of the basic sciences. His experience with this approach than that. The biggest mistake, Hazen says, is suggests that the results would be widethat of trying to make children, from the ly successful. Such an approach may also reduce earliest grades, into miniature scientists. If they succeed at one stage, they pro- science illiteracy among scientists. Haceed to the next. Eventually, with a few zen says that specialization has reached exceptions, most drop out because they the point among scientists where they lose interest or cannot do the work. The also are among the scientifically illiterSEPTEMBER 14,1992 C&EN
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ate. They may be well trained but poorly educated. This extends even to a group of people including a Nobel Prize winner that Hazen has polled. A scientist may know all about semiconductor electronics, he says, but be totally ignorant of such basic information as the genetic code and the action of DNA. A major problem that Hazen has encountered is what to include in a general science course. He says any scientist could come up with, perhaps, 20 basic ideas that might be taught. Comparing many of these lists, he adds, would reveal that there are, maybe, eight or 10 ideas that are common to the lists. These would be the subject matter of a general course. Another view of science and illiteracy was offered by Trevor Pinch, a sociologist who studies the history and sociology of science in the department of science and technology studies at Cornell University. Like the other speakers, he believes science literacy means being able to understand the political issues of the day. Having specific scientific knowledge—such as what a molecule is—is insufficient, he says. There are more than enough experts on all sides of the major issues to demonstrate that content alone is not enough, he adds. Pinch suggests another route to public understanding of science. Don't focus on content, he says. Instead, "consider science as a process." He wants the public to be better educated on how science works. This would, he believes, result in a public with a more realistic expectation of what science can deliver. Pinch says that today's scientists are not interest-free, neutral observers of natural phenomena. Science today "can be much more messy than people think," he continues, explaining that it is very rare that experiments are unambiguous. Scientists are not gods, he notes. They are experts, but there is room for disagreement. "As a knight in shining armor, science is more John Cleese than Clint Eastwood." This picture may not be widespread but Pinch says it is gaining ground. An example of his point is the recent controversy surrounding cold fusion. Pinch notes that there was much media anxiety and hype that made the controversy appear to be more serious than it actually was. But even while great debates over what constitute science and science illiteracy go on, many practicing scien32
SEPTEMBER 14,1992 C&EN
tists and their organizations continue to labor in the vineyards with the tried and accepted methods of bringing more science to more people, particularly at the precollege level. Jane Snell Copes, a senior chemist at 3M Corp., for example, described for the symposium how her company and its employees have spent much time, effort, and $2 million in interesting their communities in science and technology. "It's a matter of wanting to influence future workers and keep the present workers interested in their communities," she says. The work force of the future will require smarter workers with more complex skills. At 3M this means engaging in a four-part partnership among employers, employees and parents, schools, and teachers and parents. Direct corporate involvement at 3M has been via such programs as a Science Training Encouragement Program (STEP), in which 20 or 30 students are chosen from local schools in St. Paul, Minn., to spend four hours each week during the spring semester at the 3M center. As well as receiving lab experience and association with employees who serve as volunteer instructors, the students are given instruction in math, chemistry, and the use of computers. The company also funds "Newton's Apple" on public TV, and summer workshops for teachers. Other 3M programs include regular school visits by employees and traveling "road shows" by about 1000 trained "wizards," who take hands-on demonstrations into the classrooms. In the 1991-92 school year, about 56,000 people were contacted in this manner. At Sandia National Laboratories, staff scientists and engineers are also engaged in outreach programs. Kenneth H. Ecklemeyer, outreach coordinator at Sandia, notes that the Secretary of Energy has, in fact, directed the staffs at Department of Energy labs to become more involved in such efforts. One result has been the School Partnership Program in which Sandia staffers cooperate with teachers in presenting curriculum. In 1991, the Albuquerque public school system selected three schools for a pilot project for demonstrations and talks. A typical demonstration simulated the design of a container for nuclear waste by encasing a volunteer student in bubble-wrap, then placing the "package" on roller-skates, and crashing it into a wall. The idea was not only
to give a demonstration of Newtonian physics but also to gain a practical appreciation of what is involved in protecting hazardous wastes. This project was also a good public relations venture for Sandia. The pilot project was successful, and the program is now being considered for expansion to the entire state of New Mexico. It seems clear that considerable effort is being expended in the drive to demystify science for the general public. Formal courses of instruction in general science, the science process, and "the meaning of science" are helpful. But integrating the practicing scientist and engineer more deeply into the community may be a significant step toward solving the problem. Joseph Haggin
Complexes control nitric oxide release
^i^i^i^i^ WASHINGTON, P.C. Chemists have developed a family of complexes of nitric oxide with nucleophiles that are effective agents for the controlled biological release of nitric oxide. The compounds may form the basis of a new class of drugs and are likely to be useful to scientists who are probing the ubiquitous biological functions of nitric oxide. The compounds, which are salts containing anions with the general formula X-[N(0)NOr, were described in a symposium sponsored by the Medicinal Chemistry Division by Larry K. Keefer, chief of the chemistry section of the Laboratory of Comparative Carcinogenesis, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Md. Keefer refers to the compounds as NONOates. Keefer points out that nitric oxide recently has been found to be involved in a variety of biological processes, including normal physiological control of blood pressure, macrophage-induced cytostasis and cytotoxicity, and neurotransmission. Reefer's group reported last year that nitric oxide also deaminates DNA bases and is a mutagen in living cells (C&EN, Nov. 18,1991, page 23). That nitric oxide reacts with nucleophiles to produce stable complexes has
