The American War on Science (FIRST is on the other side)

[JoelP]

An interesting article I came across from Seed Magazine.

Indeed this is our Sputnik and ever more support for governmental support of FIRST.

[Daniel Morse]

This is a good article and it illustrates a good point. Dean Kamen has pointed it out time and time again, America simply needs more scientists and engineers in order to stay competitive on a global scale. Science and engineering have gotten this country to where it is. The problem is that we are now resting on our laurels, a victim of our own industrial success. As India and China begin their own industrial revolution, they are positioning themselves for a big boost to their standard of living and national success. If America does not show the initiative to stay afloat in this shift of economic balance, we may lose our balance, and lose the ability to hold on to our success. That said, FIRST is one answer to this problem. More governmental support of FIRST will allow kids to see engineering and science in a new light, as an interesting and dynamic field, and not just one of those careers that their math or science teachers mention once in awhile in class. As the student president this season, I made it my number one goal to teach younger students as much as possible in order to show them how fun the design and manufacturing process can be. The more vocal FIRST people become, the harder it is to ignore our requests. However; in my opinion, FIRST is not the only answer to this problem. While I am not claiming to have all the answers, I know that there is more than one way to approach a problem, and I am sure that other programs can be developed to emphasize science and engineering in a different (fun) way in order to entice more people to become scientists and engineers. I know that many activities of this type exist in schools; however, what I am saying is, for example, to open up that normally ultra stereotyped math team (at least in my school) to people other than math and science "nerds" (of which I am one) and find a way to show kids that may not be interested in math that it can actually be fun. This is what I think can help get our country back into the position that it has enjoyed for so many years. The students who have been guided toward engineering by FIRST are living proof that this idea can work, and it is up to us to spread the word and act as the catalyst to get more of these types of programs started.

[Rick TYler]

Despite the manifest failure of the public school system (as a system) in the US, we continue to worship at its altar. I remain gobsmacked.

[Daisy]

I recommend that people also look at this thread.

This article deals more with grad work. The thread above talks a lot about problems found in the education system.

[Dick Linn]

The sad part is, we can't even compete in some areas of production, nevermind science or engineering. Need a giant steel casting for a drop-forging machine weighing 450,000 pounds? Look overseas and wait 6 months or more. Need rolling machinery for a steel plant? Buy it surplus if you can find it or build it yourself. It's sad, but it is true. You folks are among the few who see and appreciate what is happening. Do what you can. Make us proud!

[Daisy]

I have a deep belief that the problem lies in the priorities that people set. The priority is music, and entertainment, and what does one get out of that, except fewer brain cells? I believe that parents have allowed their kids to become social elites, rather than academic ones, because the kids complain of not having a high "social status". But, I turned out okay, and I didn't actually have friends until freshmen year.

And how do you retrain the mind, in order to stop further generations from going into he same position? You'd have to bring entertainment to technology, and not technology to entertainment. And how do you do that? You'd have to teach children at a young age about the sciences they enjoyed, even if it's generic, and go through as many different things as possible (astronomy; the rest they already are learning, but those should have better names (ie. "this is a leaf, a leaf comes from a tree. This is biology" etc)). And then you give them different programs they can join, like science summer camps, FLL, etc, at really low prices, if not free (fundraising does not count).


In order to get to grad education in science, you have to start at a young age.

Hope that makes sense.

Daisy

[edit] Exposure. It is all about exposure. Maybe that is why entertainment is so affective. Because that is what they are exposed to. So, you'd have to just let kids watch for a while, hands-on activities, and let it become as natural to them as singing.[/edit]

[Mr. Freeman]

I don't see what part of any of this is like sputnik. From my understanding, the Russians launching sputnik and beating the U.S. to space created a nation wide interest in better science and mathematics education. It also lead the president to create programs to accomplish this.

I haven't yet seen any effective programs to help give students better science and mathematics education.

I found this link in another topic on CD:
http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06...try&topic_set=

And this one a few weeks ago about textbooks in schools:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12705167/

It seems to me that while schools and the government are telling us that "Students are loosing interest in Science and mathematics", they're also preventing students from becoming interested in science and mathematics.
Every "chemistry" lab done in middle school was no more exciting than adding food coloring to water. They haven't become much more exciting or informative during the 2 years I've been in high school so far either.

The mathematics textbooks (at least the ones we use) are a joke. In the words of Tom Lehrer in his song "New Math", "See, in the new approach, as you know, the important thing is to understand what you're doing rather than to get the right answer."

FIRST really is helping to give students an interest in becoming engineers, or in doing jobs related to science and mathematics.

EDIT: Forgot to mention on thing. Somewhere either in the government, or in the schools the belief seems to have arisen that states "Students can't understand science/math unless we dumb it down or make it 'interesting'". Now, there's no problem with making it interesting (that's what FIRST does quite well). But the schools attempt to do this by adding exclamation points to the end of every sentence in textbooks and assuming that we all have the attention spans of 2-year-olds.

[artdutra04]

All it takes to change society is to show children and teens that technology can do cool things. And is that not the point of FIRST?

Just bring a full-size FRC robot to an elementary school and drive it around and do something like score a tetra or shoot a ball, and watch the children. They will be as amazed - both the boys and the girls. Then, give them a Vex robot to drive around for a little bit after they see the FRC robot and to them it is like Christmas. All you will hear is "Can I keep this?", "This is cool!", "I wish I had one of these!", "Look at what mine can do!".

And just after you do that, have a FIRST LEGO League signup form. If you can get young children thinking technology is cool early on in life, they will continue to hold onto that viewpoint for the rest of their lives.

[JoeXIII'007]

That article only makes me want to be a computer and/or physics researcher just a bit more. (I have actually been considering it for a while now... it would be an interesting job at the very least.)

[Qbranch]

Originally Posted by Dick Linn

The sad part is, we can't even compete in some areas of production, nevermind science or engineering. Need a giant steel casting for a drop-forging machine weighing 450,000 pounds? Look overseas and wait 6 months or more. Need rolling machinery for a steel plant? Buy it surplus if you can find it or build it yourself. It's sad, but it is true. You folks are among the few who see and appreciate what is happening. Do what you can. Make us proud!

That makes me want to run out and build a giant blast furnace in my yard But, jokes aside, what you say has me scared... because its true.

-Q

[Evenstar_342]

I think FIRST is an excellent step towards helping America continue its economic and innovative leadership, but I think the real change will have to happen in middle and high schools across America. As a homeschooled dual credit student at a local technical college, everyday I see hoards of students who have recently graduated from the "best" high schools in our area struggle through basic math and science courses. Some of the courses are so dumbed down its a joke. Astronomy is basically a history course, and even though the Mech Engineering Technology curriculum has been drastically changed, the program is still dying. In Chemistry, where I work-study, I constantly hear people complain about how they have to take two science courses and two maths to get an Associates in Science and I would estimate that at 50% of students in CHM 110 fail. It really frustrates me since I will be entering the work force in a little less than a decade as, hopefully, a materials engineer and some times I look at stories like this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13123358/site/newsweek/, and wonder if I will be able to find a job in the US.

Maybe its just the community I come from, the high school here keeps getting caught red shirting football players so they can have a better team while insisting they cannot fund things like FIRST or VEX teams and my state is the worst in the country for its public school system, but I do find that many people my age just don't seem to care about science and technology and assume that "somebody else" will keep America's economy going. FIRST is a wonderful, wonderful idea, but its voluntary. School is really the place whether students have to be exposed to science and engineering. Public schools are the perfect place to start changing young people's perceptions and emphasize how cool and rewarding science and technology can be!

Sorry if this is a little long, I guess as a FIRSTer, I feel rather passionately about this. Check out this article too, I think it could have almost be written by Woodie: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13117432...wsweek/page/4/

[Amanda Morrison]

Sputnik was a Russian satellite launched into space on October 4, 1957. Occuring during the Cold War and the paranoia between the two countries over armaments and nuclear weapons, the decade also marked by McCarthyism in the early 50's and the infamous Red Scare. America was tiptoeing towards the 1960's in terms of technology, but the launch of Sputnik knocked us flat on our backs.

Prior to NASA, an organization called NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) existed. NACA itself had been started as a response to the British Advisory Committee for Aeronautics after our aviation capabilities were flagging to the Europeans. Shortly after Sputnik's launch, NACA was dissolved and formed into modern day NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

NASA formed the Mercury program, designed to answer the Russian space ambitions. The primary goal was to put a man into space before them. NASA began testing Atlas and Redstone rockets with the American military. In the early program, the practice launches of the rockets failed again and again. Many of them exploded during the test, failed to leave the launch pad, etc. (Read about the famous "four inch flight " if you have the time.) At this time, the magazine Missiles and Rockets wrote, "NASA's Mercury manned satellite program appears to be plummeting the United States toward a new humiliating disaster in the East-West space race. ...It no longer offers any realistic hope of beating Russia in launching the first man into orbit, much less to serve as an early stepping-stone for reaching the Moon."

Americans like being first. Everyone does, don't they? The men of the original Space Task Group and their growing operation for Mercury worked harder than ever, but Russia prevailed and put the first man in space. Alan Shepard was the first American, going up for a 15 minute ride in 1961. The Russians then beat us at numerous space records over the next few years. We were defeated, but didn't give up.

America soon had the record for longest man in space, and the Mercury program was a success. Our country was enamored with the race, and the original Mercury Seven became heroes (hence why most people know the names offhand). President Kennedy saw not only the political benefits of the program, but also the educational. He encouraged the program and made the lofty goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade. We all know who ended up winning.

The technology and scientific information gained from the original Mercury program and subsequent Gemini and Apollo programs affects everyone in modern times. The first mission control centers had to teletype messages to each other. From there, radio and telemetry advanced. The things we take granted every day of our lives are made possible by these advancements.

Average modern students can still name some of the original astronauts of the 1960's - John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong, for example - but many would be hard pressed to tell you who was president before Kennedy. The technology heroes of that era, popularized by NASA, were the prevailing stars of that decade. In today's day and age, we can name very few.

Today's Sputnik, I'll argue, is not here yet. The conditions are ripe. With America falling further and further behind in science and technology, and the next big technological breakthrough imminent, our next trip and fall awaits. Textbooks today are indeed a joke: read Richard Feynman's Surely You Are Joking, Mr. Feynman! and you'll see his recount of horror at modern textbooks and the committees that choose them. America's education system is in disgusting disarray.

Programs such as the No Child Left Behind Act do not help our chances of avoiding a fall of Sputnik-sized proportions. The act is not designed with students or teachers in mind; it puts further pressures on teachers already dogged with inadequate materials and books in many classrooms, especially urban areas. Programs like after school tutoring, Boys and Girls Club, the Girl and Boy Scouts, YMCA's and YWCA's, and yes, even FIRST, provide the necessary education that the government is not providing in today's schools.

The next Sputnik defeat is right around the corner. America is once again not prepared. I certainly hope a group of people can step up in the face of defeat and make America as proud as NASA did.

AM


In this post, I refered to the following events and used the following resources to back up my information: this, this, this, and most importantly, this and this and this documentary.

[Evenstar_342]

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison

Sputnik was a Russian satellite launched into space on October 4, 1957. Occuring during the Cold War and the paranoia between the two countries over armaments and nuclear weapons, the decade also marked by McCarthyism in the early 50's and the infamous Red Scare. America was tiptoeing towards the 1960's in terms of technology, but the launch of Sputnik knocked us flat on our backs...
The next Sputnik defeat is right around the corner. America is once again not prepared. I certainly hope a group of people can step up in the face of defeat and make America as proud as NASA did.

I guess we can hope that the next Sputnik will wake up America enough to realise that we need to get on the ball when it comes to education.

[AudieMurphy]

I thought that was a really interesting article right up until the last three paragraphs. A couple of those were unnecessarily offensive and I believe factually incorrect. The writer seemed to go off on a tangent just to grind some political and ideological axes, and it started to remind me of some of my old college professors who just couldn't stick to the darn subject either.

He engages in bashing Bush and labels him and all those who voted for him as being "anti-rational" and therefore anti-science. Hasty conclusion there, pal, and it's based on misrepresentations of Bush's policies and seems like an attack on anyone who believes in God or a higher power. Just because you might not want evolution taught in the classroom or you don't want your tax dollars going to unrestricted embryonic research, it doesn't follow that you wouldn't want your child to become an engineer or to engage in any of a multitude of other scientific studies or endeavors. People of faith love science, too. Some of them have even been known to build monstrous, metal crunching robots. Woot!

vic

[Evenstar_342]

AudieMurphy, while I agree with you that the writer kinda went off on a tangent about Bush being "anti-rational". However, I think he does make a good point when he remarks that, "It would be absurd to blame a politician for a nationwide decline in scientific interest, but it stands to reason that a president elected, and then re-elected, must in some way embody the beliefs of the electorate—here, specifically, its prioritization of science."

I don't mean this as any sort of a political attack, and I don't want to offend anyone, but in the last election, or even this upcoming one, did you see any candidate even mention that America needs to focus on science and technology to continue our economic prosperity? No, instead everyone focused on what two men may or may not have been doing thirty years ago in relation to Vietnam. Who is responsible for that? I think he's right, in that its the American people's fault. When we, as an electorate, finally stand up and say "enough is enough", then the politicians will focus on science and technology education. This isn't going to happen either until there is another "Sputnik" or until FIRST and other organizations like it change the culture enough. The reason why, in my opinion, that there is no emphasis on science and technology education/awareness, is not a political problem, its an awareness problem.