Steady as She Goes? Three Generations of Students through the Science and Engineering Pipeline

In October 2009, Rutgers University released an important (if not provocative) report that didn’t make the headlines and was barely mentioned by the usual STEM chest-pounders (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). I mean that in a good way–we need those folks. Wait, I’m one of them.

But why haven’t we heard much about this report? It may have something to do with a key finding that, in some ways, seems to contradict some of the common pull quotes of STEM-related press releases where we often hear about the need–and, more recently, read about the financial investments–to turn more kids onto STEM careers. Rightly so, especially given the fact that the number of STEM graduate degrees earned in the U.S. in 2006 ranked among the lowest of the G-8 countries. (Digging up recent stats now. If you have info, would you kindly send it to me?)

Here’s where the confusion sets in. Based on the findings of the Rutgers report, a HUGE problem is being dissed. From the report:

Yet, is there evidence of an actual long-term decline in the proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM jobs? We have argued elsewhere that the United States actually supplies more than enough students prepared for STEM jobs and that there is little evidence of a current domestic supply bottleneck (Lowell and Salzman, 2007).1 We found that universities in the United States actually graduate many more STEM students than are hired each year. We also found that the U.S. education system produces large numbers of top-performing science and math students.2

But….?

“Highly qualified students may be choosing a non-(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) job because it pays better, offers a more stable professional career, and/or perceived as less exposed to competition from low-wage economies,” writes Georgetown University demographer Lindsay Lowell and colleagues, in the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation-funded study. “The problem may not be that there are too few (science) qualified college graduates, but rather that (science) firms are unable to attract them.”

In an April speech at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), President Obama seconded years of concern over the U.S. scientific workforce, particularly a 2005 NAS report, by calling for more engineering and science graduates from U.S. colleges.

However, the supply of technically-capable students has remained level over the last three decades, find the researchers, producing “many more” science graduates than are hired by industry. Turning to federal surveys from 1972 to 2005, they instead find that the best students are moving out of science and engineering careers, “at a substantial rate, and this decline seems to have come on quite suddenly in the mid-to-late 1990s.”

Many of the  best STEM graduates follow the money, at least they did in the  90s, per this report. And, there was a lot more money to go around back then, in non STEM areas. Regardless,  this paper provides a nice argument in support of raising salaries for STEM-related positions. Now. Industry: are you listening? I know you like to hire cheap labor overseas but…”Wo jue de ni yao ting wo shuo!  Zenmeyang? Xie, xie, ni.”

On the bright side, it’s possible this bad economy will be good for STEM. Money’s not what it used to be in the investment banking world these days. In fact, current currency among the leaders in that realm is traded in Marlboro cigs if my sources are correct.

This ain’t yo’ daddy’s NASA no mo’.  Today, NASA launches Mission Science, a site designed specifically for teens “who have their own unique language and style,” according to this morning’s NASA press release. Teens can access real-time spacecraft data, conduct experiments with NASA scientists, find space-related summer internships, and participate in a host of social networking initiatives. And, yes, it’s also designed to showcase NASA’s vast “collection of educational resources and encourage students to study and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.” Yes, yes, there are still shades of yo’ daddy’s NASA but this is a great start. True fact: NASA has accounts on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. NASA, you da bomb!

Last week, I had the pleasure of organizing a citizen science project for my son’s second grade class. The teacher and students were well-prepared by the time I entered the classroom to talk about Cornell’s citizen science project called “Pigeon Watch”. The kids had already viewed the getting started video so they were aware that not all pigeons look alike. They also understood why scientists are turning to kids and adults in an effort to create a much clearer picture of the epidemiology of pigeons. Why are there so many different colors of pigeons in the world? Sure, humans selectively bred them to bear beautiful colors but once they were released back into the wild, scientists predicted they’d revert back to the colors of their wild relatives in the Mediterranean. But they haven’t, even after 400 years. No other feral animal has kept so many domestic colors for more than a few generations.

By recording observations about urban pigeons, citizen scientists, like these 2nd graders, are helping scientists understand:

* why pigeons continue to exist in so many colors
* which color morphs pigeons prefer for mates

Thanks, kids, you are terrific scientists! GOOOOOO Science!

The itty bitty kids pictured here* invented EpiWatch, an alternative to traditional allergy shot systems. The small, wearable, computerized EpiWatch contains special codes and micro needles that instantly deliver painless doses of epinephrine when the wearer suffers from a food allergy reaction, and then utilizes cell phone and GPS technology to alert medical officials in the event of a serious allergic reaction.

And they’re not even from China or India…homegrown in Land-o-Lakes, Florida.  They represent but a smattering of creative thinkers who’ve recently been recognized by the National Science Teachers Association and Toshiba through the ExploraVision Competition. Other 2009 winning ideas include a tiny device to help solve the problem of illegal steroids in sports, asphalt roads that could generate electricity from the sun’s rays, and even a special music stand that could help musicians get to Carnegie Hall faster.

ExploraVision asks K-12 students to pick a current technology and imagine how it might progress in the next 20 years.

This year’s contest deadline is February 2, 2010.  You can visit www.exploravision.org, follow them on Twitter @exploravision or join the ExploraVision Facebook Fan Page to learn about how to encourage students to use and create future technologies.

*Left to right: Jim Sardano (Toshiba), Colby Tomasello, Catie Tomasello, Heather Tomasello (mentor,) Grace Nobles, Marisa Meglino, Richard Hunter (coach)
Photo Credit: Jerel Tomasello

Here’s a recent picture of my niece from the U.K. experimenting with a Soda Bottle Volcano. Her mom (my sister) makes it her part of her mission to keep my niece engaged in science. No, she’s not a scientist. She’s a natural born teacher (and this goes right to Paul’s comments to this post).

My sister pointed me to this terrific site which states: “Words cannot begin to describe the awesome eruption created from mixing Mentos candy and soda. Eruptions of up to 18 feet are possible if done correctly.”

Check out this video. How can you NOT want to do this!? (After the Phillies game, of course.)

Voted Berkeley’s Best Class, may I introduce Professor Richard Muller’s popular “Physics for Future Presidents!” Free podcasts of each lecture now available. From Muller’s website:

Physics for future Presidents, (based on the book of the same name):The title is serious.  After every lecture, you should come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know. (Except, perhaps, for the material on Relativity, which is just interesting.)

In August, I participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in North Carolina. To purpose of the event was to share with science education directors ways they can contribute to the public understanding of science and science education. The discussion was moderated by Russ Campbell, BWF Communications Director (and fellow Philadelphian–yo, Russ!).

Here are the presentations of the three panelists, in this order:

• Darlene Cavalier, Science Cheerleader
• Glenn Murphy, author of “Why is Snot Green”
• Troy Livingston, Museum of Life and Science

Hope you enjoy it. Tell us what you would add!

This is a NASA video of Sally Ride talking about being chosen as NASA’s first female astronaut, and what it was like to ride the shuttle into space. What an experience that must have been.

I had the honor of working closely with Sally Ride several years ago, first at Space.com, then when she hired me to create a middle school science competition for Imaginary Lines, Inc. (www.SallyRideScience.com), a company she founded to support the large numbers of girls and young women who are, or might become, interested in science, math, engineering and technology.

Thanks to support from founding sponsors Hasbro and Smith College, TOY Challenge was created in a few short months. (So happy to see it’s still going strong!)

TOY Challenge is based on the belief that “toys are a great way to learn about science, engineering, and the design process! As girls and boys create a toy or game, they experience engineering as a fun, creative, collaborative process, relevant to everyday life.”

Teams of middle school students work together to dream up and design new toys. Check out last year’s winners.

Registration for the 2010 Toy Challenge is open now through November 20.

Good luck! And, thanks Sally, for all you do for girls and science.

Here’s Science Cheerleader Reporter, Sarah. She interviewed the band “They Might Be Giants” about their new album “Here Comes Science!”

John Linnel and John Flansburgh (often nicknamed “the two Johns”) first started writing songs together while attending high school in Lincoln, Massachusetts.  In the early 1980′s, they went on to form a band called They Might Be Giants, named after the 1971 film, and began performing in and around New York City.  They even recorded their songs on an answering machine that fans could call to listen and leave them messages.  Coming a long way from these “Dial-a-Song” days, they are now Grammy award winning artists who have sold over four million records worldwide.

Last night, David and I attended the opening concert of They Might Be Giants’ new national tour promoting their latest children’s album called Here Comes Science, an album all about basic scientific concepts.  And though this album is certainly wonderful for teaching children, I would argue that it’s just as effective at reminding adults of all the things about science they might not keep in their day-to-day frame of mind.    It was a phenomenal show!  They Might Be Giants are fantastic musicians, and their songs are incredibly likeable.  But beyond just the music, I also have to admit that there was something really powerful about been immersed in a totally diverse audience singing, “Science is Real!” in unison. (Check TMBG’s concert schedule to see when they are coming to your town.)

Before the concert, I got the amazing opportunity to interview They Might Be Giants over the phone to talk to them about their new album and upcoming tour.  Here are some segments from our chat:

Sarah:  Why the topic of science for this album?  And, since you have previously been quoted as being “afraid” of science, how did you get over your fears when tackling the topic?

They Might Be Giants (TMBG):  It’s not like every day there are songs about science.  Also, there are  many, many people who are involved in doing science.  You run the risk of making them mad.  For example, we just put out our video for a song on the album about a paleontologist, and Danny, our bass player, plays a character in the video digging up dinosaur bones.  But within hours of posting the video, we received angry comments from actual paleontologists who said they were much more involved with being in a laboratory everyday than out in the field.  Frankly, there are just a lot of details, so for us it was more of a fear of pontificating and being incorrect.  In other songs, we used to have a lot of artistic license and weren’t held to being true…now all of a sudden, things have to be factual.  And we brought in a consultant, Eric, to help with that.

Sarah: Did you struggle having to work with a consultant to write the songs?

TMBG: No, we struggled more just working off information we received.  As some of it came from the unreliable internet, some of the information was flat out wrong, which we learned in a hurry.  But you know what you are supposed to be doing, even if it was hard to get all of the information straight.  Making up songs from scratch has its own challenges.  Our consultant, Eric Field – who illustrates science ideas for kids – had a sense of how far we could go before we went too far.  He wasn’t just involved as a fact checker, but also in trying to figure out things that can engage kids.

Sarah:  What was his feeling on working with musicians?

TMBG:  He was really amused by the whole project.  Dan Spock, who is a big children’s museum exhibit creator, knows a lot of people in that field.  He recommended Eric, and it just seemed like a natural fit.

Sarah: Do you find there is a different mentality that goes into writing for kids?

TMBG: If you are using the word mentality, there isn’t really.  There are certain ideas or topics that are more appropriate for kids rather than adults.  The success of our children’s projects has been due to applying the same mentality and spirit to the music.  We give kids as much credit as adults for getting the spirit of what we are doing.  We actually give as much time to putting together our kids’ albums.  We don’t treat kids as a a lesser version of our product.  Kids are a sensitive, tuned-in audience and tough on you, and you have to persuade them that you are good.  They’ll tell their own grandparents that they are boring!  Kids are natural thrill seekers.  So we don’t know how important it is for kids to listen to kids’ music.

Sarah: I’ve heard from so many people that say, “I finally have music to listen to with my kids.”  Is that the feedback you are getting?  And do you think kids’ music has been dumbed down?

Yeah.  Once we thought about it at all, a lot of the stuff we didn’t like about contemporary kids’ music was just that.  It has be to listenable to by adults.  There’s something agreeable and fun about stuff that is dumb – maybe it is partly because it is dumb – though I guess I wouldn’t say “smart” music is necessarily the answer.  There is just some music that is irritating.  A lot of stuff is simply manufactured for kids.  There a lot of corporate [stuff] out there.

Sarah: What do you hope children will get from this album?  Adults?

We go through the song process in a problem solving way, but we don’t think so hard about how they are going to land with the audience.  But, there is a song that is called “Meet the Elements” that, if it existed in high school, we would have done better in chemistry!  It does exist as a pneumonic.  People remember things set to music.

Sarah:  Was School House Rock an influence in writing Here Comes Science?  Their songs accomplish a lot of the same goals.

TMBG: We actually never saw School House Rock, even though it’s the most common thing that comes up when talking about this stuff – we just completely missed out on that.  We are impossibly old, and believe it or not, Sesame Street started when we were in elementary school, so we didn’t necessarily experience those in a primary way either.  [School House Rock] is cited as a precedent for what we’re doing, but we were uninformed by it.

Sarah:  Making a CD that is eduational comes with a certain amount of responsibility.  Did you feel that?

TMBG:  When we were doing the ABCs and the 123s, there wasn’t any danger that we would screw up in any way.  There are always going to be cranks that are going to criticize what we are doing, extremely picky people, but we did feel a responsibility to get this right.  But there are still probably errors, and we’re still sparking controversy.  But there is controversy among the experts!  It’s very hard to tip-toe around that stuff.  It does enhance our bad-boy image though! [Laughter]

Sarah: How has the new scientific understanding changed you?

TMBG:  Not being experts, there are certain advantages that we have going into this.  We can identify with people who do not naturally take to that subject and say, “Yeah, some of that is really counter-intuitive.”  Facts that are most important [in science] are sometimes the least obvious or make the least amount of sense, and we feel uniquely qualified [because we understand that].  We haven’t changed our perspective since making this album, but we are more informed.  Though we still get why the material is hard and why kids would be turned off by it.  We wouldn’t just assume that we can make this material loveable…there is always a challenge in presenting the material.  It’s not something that happens naturally.  In that sense, we’re still working from the same position.

Sarah:  What is next for you after this tour in children’s music?

TMBG:  We’re going to write an album about cynicism. [Lots of laughter]  This science thing has busted the whole formula.  We were told by Disney that the follow-up to the ABCs was going to have to be the 123s.  In some ways it was so obvious that we needed to be reminded of that.  For the science thing, we were discussing instead of “Here Comes…” it could be “There Goes Your Civil Rights.”  [More laughter]

I could list so many wonderful things about Here Comes Science, but I think it would be better for all of you to check it out for yourselves!  (My favorite song at the moment is Electric Car, and that video is posted below.)  A big thank you to They Might Be Giants’ publicist, Debbie, for setting up the interview and arranging our concert tickets.  (For this science dork, it was incredibly cool for my reputation to be on a rock band’s “list.”)

Heeeeere’s John! About a year ago, Google announced it’s “10 to the 100th Power” contest to celebrate its 10th anniversary.  The intent of the contest was to get ideas from around that would help the most number of people.  Google would invest a big pot of cash to help kick-start some of those ideas.  The contest was a pretty neat; even I submitted several ideas in the hope of becoming the savior of all humankind.

Semi-finalists were supposed to be announced by January 27th, 2009, but got delayed until March 17th, and then  was put on hold again.  Apparently the company that handles a bazillion search requests each day got swamped by 150,000 ideas, but I digress.  On September 24th the semi-finalists were announced, and the public is invited to vote on their favorites.  I’m a little miffed because none of my obviously world-changing ideas were among the chosen, but I’ll just have to get over that small disappointment.

All of the ideas are meritorious, however there are a couple that readers of “Science Cheerleader” might find especially interesting…

1. Enhance science and engineering education
2. Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists

I’m really not trying to game the vote (well, OK, I am), but I encourage you to let your Google vote be heard.  Voting ends on October 8th, 2009.