EDUCATION
Science and Society Programs Fuel Drive for Technological Literacy Conference focuses on need for technological literacy at all student levels and on approaches and materials directed at achieving it Technological literacy is an idea whose time may be nearly at hand. That, at least, is the impression given early this month in Washington, D.C., by the Second National Science, Technology, Society (STS) Conference: Technological Literacy. "Our goal is coalition building," says Rustum Roy, director of Pennsylvania State University's Science, Technology & Society program. Roy was cochairman of the conference, along with George Bugliarello, president of Polytechnic University, New York City. The aim, Roy explains, is to create a community, one which is truly interdisciplinary. The conference, he says, brings together, for example, teachers and university professors—people, he notes, who never in any other community meet together. Added to these, he points out, are activists such as representatives of public interest groups sitting together with policy people. Indeed, the cosponsoring organizations were one indication of the breadth of interests brought to the meeting: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Engineering Education, International Technology Education Association, National Council of Teachers of English, and National Science Teachers Association. All told, the conference this year drew together for a three-day w e e k e n d some 750 registrants— 26
February 23, 1987 C&EN
Roy: an approach on the move three times the number at the first conference last year. The focus of the coalition's attention are the new science/technology/society programs and materials, designed to promote scientific and technological literacy. Among the features of the approach are that it is directed not just at elite students who aspire to careers in science and engineering, but at all learners. Also, the science disciplines are integrated with one another and with technology. And the social, political, economic, and personal impacts of science and technology are clearly and frequently emphasized, so that students aren't left to wonder about the human importance of these fields. "Effective citizenship/' Roy explains, "demands a new kind of literacy in technology and science that cannot be met by adding a course in algebra. STS is a wholly new approach to making citizens more concerned about our technological
culture, more comfortable in it, and more in control of their own lives and decisions." Also, says Roy, STS is an approach that's on the move. Many universities are teaching it today, he notes. And it is international. In precollege education, Roy says, the Netherlands is way ahead, and Britain is next. In Canada, he points out, British Columbia has started a mandated oneyear STS curriculum. Ontario, he says, will move next year. New York is close to that. And Maryland is just behind. "It is an unstoppable tide," says Roy. "The funny part of it," he adds, is that there is no big program. People do it because they feel it has to be done. There is a kind of nonspecific curriculum. Materials are being developed, and every school can choose which to use. But, Roy says, "the label is there: science, technology, and society." The need to develop technological literacy in the general public
Gibbons: imperatives drive the need
has been the theme of many na tional reports and studies in recent years. Officers and speakers at the conference underscored those needs as they see them. Says Bugliaiello, for example: "We are a nation of technological illiterates, at risk in industry, in defense, and indeed in our culture. If we are to maintain our competitive position in the world, technological literacy must be accorded top national priority/' To Mary Budd Rowe, president elect of the National Science Teach ers Association, 'Technology is the public face of science. It drives the economy and affects political out look. It is both a source of hope for the future and fear for it." Students, Rowe says, complain that science courses fail to deal with the impli cations of technology for them, and history courses rarely show how pol itics and economics are tied to the history of technology. "Less and less of schooling," Rowe says, "seems suitable to the needs of young people today. Incorpora tion of a science/technology/society thread into the science, social stud ies, and math curricula would in crease interest and provide an op portunity for students to engage in some socially relevant, real prob lem solving." John H. Gibbons, director of the Office of Technology Assessment, points out three imperatives driv ing the need for technological liter acy. One, he says, is the economic necessity of technological literacy for the individual—for example, in job skills n e e d e d — a n d for the competitiveness of the nation. The second is that the responsibilities for citizenship now demand that citizens raise their level of literacy about the issues on which their representatives are having to make decisions. If those decisions and those decision makers are pushed by events far enough ahead of the citizens, he says, then representa tive democracy no longer exists. Third, Gibbons says, "is that the fullness of human development and the very enjoyment of life itself more and more depend on things that include not only Superbowl but supercolliders, superconductivity, and lots of super things." James Krieger, Washington
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