SCIENCE, CULTURED
Many students don’t see a life of academic specialization as the best way to employ their scientific talents. They want to do something more, to bring science to the rest of America.
SCIENCE, CULTURED
Don’t fall for the optimistic spin that some are putting out: What happened in Texas last week was bad, bad, bad for science education.
SCIENCE, CULTURED
Science and engineering will continue to play a key role in growing our economy and developing clean energy technologies. The government needs to enable more students to pursue schooling that contributes to our green growth.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Crippling our nation’s future economic competitiveness and military preparedness by crimping scientific learning and denigrating authoritative science puts our nation at risk.
In today’s NYT Science Times, Carl Zimmer profiles Will Wright’s latest game, Spore, which follows the evolution of new life forms from single-celled organisms to galaxy-hoping civilizations. Spore raises the possibility that video games could help illuminate for players the basic premises of the life sciences.
Science and tech commentary from around the web: climate change health impacts, the bioethics of voting technology, evolution teaching tools, the wind in NYC, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, scivee.tv, and Green Chemistry in CA.
Congress recently authorized the creation of the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, a nonprofit organization that will support research, development, and adoption of digital learning technologies. Unfortunately, Congress neglected to provide sufficient funding for the center.
STEM EDUCATION
Is the U.S. really producing fewer and fewer scientists—and is the answer to simply crank out more?
Financing Science
It isn’t a scientist shortage or a poor public education system. It’s the lack of decent-paying, tenured job opportunities for young graduate and postgraduate research scientists.
College-age readers may be interested to know that the Center for American Progress is accepting applications to its internship program, which includes Science Progress. Other readers may know students interested in the program.
Rep. Bill Foster talks about the balance between commercial science and basic long-term research, the importance of math and science education, and the need for scientific reasoning as the basis of policy discussions.
Despite significant gains over the years in the number of young women pursuing science and engineering degrees, the upper echelons of scientific research are still a boy’s club. A piece in today’s Science Times explores new research into why women are underrepresented in certain scientific fields, along with a federal push to use Title IX to expand and ensure equity in research departments.
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
Young scientists today have a hunger for outreach training. Here are some concepts, conceits, and lessons learned from an attempt to help them deal with the media.
STEM EDUCATION
Colleges and universities are graduating more science and engineering Ph.D.s, but diminishing opportunities are derailing young scientists from future careers as scientific leaders.
Science Education
Creationist groups are turning to the Louisiana legislature with a new approach to challenge the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools.
Lawmakers finally have a response to the unfortunate truth that the No Child Left Behind Act often means labs and fieldwork for science classes get left behind in favor of test preparation: the No Child Left Inside Act.
CULTIVATING SCIENCE
New proposals to revive literary scholarship with scientific methods could build a bridge between two long-separated academic worlds. The result could be a better understanding of both science and literature.
SCIENCE EDUCATION
Reflecting on the meaning and implications of DNA Day underscores the need for a national science curriculum.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has quietly extended the amount of time foreign students in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics are allowed to remain in the U.S. without a work visa after their graduation.
Education Week released a report today on the state of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in U.S. schools.
Science Progress and American Progress's Doing What Works project teamed up to produce a set of policy proposals that the Obama administration and Congress can adopt to reinvest in the building blocks of American science, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Read the overview of the five reports.
Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.