Science Cheerleader

I’m an R. Surprised an R would dedicate her career to science literacy and citizen participation in science and policy? Me too!   I can understand why Newt Gingrich isn’t keen on spending public dollars to create, yet another, Congressional agency. But he’s wrong to think the Office of Technology Assessment, which he axed in the 1990s as part of his Contract with America, was a waste of public dollars and resources. The scientists and policy wonks who worked there published hundreds of reports at the request of Congress to help them make sense of often complicated science and technology policy matters. You can find archives of the reports here. Many are still referenced today.

Last year, I launched a national effort to reopen the OTA and it has sparked a strong, well-organized movement within the science community now to lobby Congress to refund the OTA. On one hand, I’m thrilled! Wait, let me back up a bit to tell you how I became obsessed with the OTA.

I stumbled upon the OTA as a graduate student at UPenn (this is me on graduation day with comedian Yakov Smirnoff, seriously!) where my History and Sociology of Science professor handed me an assignment to “write about the rise and the fall of the OTA.” I read every piece of literature that existed and contacted many of the authors and former staffers of the OTA. I even met with Newt Gingrich and Rep. Rush Holt and chatted with Rep. Vern Elhers and several of the architects of the OTA.
I was convinced that Congress was lost a bit without its only source of dedicated, nonpartisan tech assessments and believed the Office should be refunded (it was never really killed by Congress…it was just stripped of its $23million +/- budget).

However, in this era of public participation, open source, collaboration, and transparency, I sought to open a new, decentralized, 21st Century OTA, one that would provide a mechanism to both inform the public and seek their input before Bills are posted for public comment (who really comments on posted Bills besides lobbyists and special interest groups anyway?). It’s not an entirely new idea. Richard Sclove, the founder of the Loka Institute, more than hinted at this suggestion back in the 80s. Ironically, following a major public, political and economic disaster surrounding the 1990s roll out of genetically modified foods in Europe, the E.U. opened parliamentary OTAs with a twist: the science and technology assessment undertaken by the experts at their OTAs often include citizen participation as this has been found to help assess risk, create a better informed public, and better understand societal implications of emerging technologies. All of which are key ingredients in good policy making decisions, no?  Do you want scientists or special interest groups to represent you and your questions/concerns societal impacts of science and emerging technologies? Congress knows no more than you do about these and many other scientific issues and they openly admit this. While I think it’s imperative for scientists to drive a discussion and impart their expertise on such matters, it’s equally vital that WE are afforded the opportunity to learn about and weigh in on these matters BEFORE Bills are created.
This is where the organizers of the current effort to reopen the OTA (the science community) and I differ. For the most part, they either do not understand or they don’t see the value in public participation. I can understand why if recent Town Hall meetings are what they’re basing their opinions on…but that’s not the type of participation I’m advocating for. I’m talking about a deliberate, well-constructed, inclusive approach that’s been proven to be successful in Europe (and even in China for crying out loud) and here in the U.S. although those efforts were not directly tied to Congress.

For this reason, while I wish the scientists well in their effort to persuade Congress to refund the old OTA (for the most part, although Congress did recently appropriate funds to the Government Accountability Office specifically for “technology assessments” )  I am helping to organize a new network that values the significance of both expert and citizen analysis in technology assessment. I’ll have more to say on this in the coming weeks. It’s pretty exciting and I hope you’ll join me for the journey.
In the interim, here’s what Newt recently said about the OTA. Editorial note here: this idea is worse than reopening the old OTA w/o public participation-not only is he suggesting an “expert-only” approach, but a mere handful of experts at that. This former cheerleader can smell a clique a mile away

Hat tip to David Hartman for sending this recent article to us. David’s the former host of Good Morning America and widely sought-after speaker on all things aviation and beyond.

The article calls attention to a report in yesterday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which a study of first- and second-graders “suggests female elementary school teachers who lack confidence in their own math skills could be passing their anxiety along to the girls they teach.” Lead researcher,  Sian L. Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago, says because young students “tend to model themselves after adults of the same sex, having a female teacher who is anxious about math may reinforce the stereotype that boys are better at math than girls.” (Maybe moms who fear math should teach preteens, because it’s been my experience that daughters model the exact opposite preferences of their moms. But I digress.)

It’s worth noting that the math gender gap is narrowing and in fact some say there’s no such thing as a “math gender gap”. So how do we explain the fact girls and boys score roughly the same on standardized math tests until they reach high school? Until recently, girls in high school weren’t taking the same rigorous math courses that the boys were. Now that they are, scores are evening out. Yup, it’s that simple. Check out this piece from Time.

And remember what Rita-the-Eagles-Cheerleader/Mathematician taught us:

“2-4-6-8!”

“The sum is 20.”
Cheers!

Talk about a fun radio interview! Last week, the Science Cheerleader was featured on Weekend Workout (”a fun, entertaining, edifying and sometimes twisted look at the world of fitness, food, and supplements”).

My chat about science literacy, with the host Jose Antonio–who didn’t shy away from asking some provocative questions–followed a conversation on “functional underwear.” Success! Truth be told, it feels great each time I can spread the gospel of science to a new audience. Thanks Weekend Workout!

Yale’s official mascot (known as Handsome Dan XV11, or Sherman, if you live with him) was in Philly for the Yale v Penn game so I thought I’d help give him a science makeover with the help of Discover Magazine. He’s definitely an Ivy Leaguer. (Thanks, Keli, Churchill and Dana for your participation!)

See how Yale, Discover and the Templeton Foundation partnered up to explore this question: Does evolution explain human nature.

In the news.”Science’s Rah-Rah Gal:
Philly’s Darlene Cavalier Cheers for Discovery”

“A former 76ers cheerleader has taken up the cause for promoting science education among adults, and she is turning the old beauty vs. brains debate into a full-blown marketing campaign.”

That’s the lead-in to a recent feature article in Keystone Edge, a newspaper that “tells the story of the new economy in Pennsylvania–a narrative of creative people and businesses, new development, cool places to live, and the best places to work and play.  Each Thursday, the Web site and weekly online magazine presents original stories, video and photography to tell that story, from Pittsburgh to Philly.” This past Thursday, Science Cheerleader was featured.

Here’s the article, as reported by Rory Sweeney. (more…)

My podcast interview with Sean from ScienceChat (Ireland). In this piece we talk about science literacy and citizen involvement in science policy. That was fun, Sean! Although, for some reason, I sound a little like Hillary Clinton when. she. was. on. the. campaign. trail. (Very de-li-ber-ate delivery.)

One week ago today, the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council held a public briefing and symposium to release the report “Engineering in K-12 Education:  Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects.”  The report assesses the value of developing and implementing engineering curricula for kindergarten through grade 12.  The report also describes what engineering concepts children are able to understand and at what age, and provides an analysis of more than a dozen engineering curriculum projects.

Access the report for free online or listen to the webcast of the event.

On a related note, recently, a friend and extraordinary man David Hartman forwarded to me an Aviation Week and Space Technology article. Hartman, a former cohost of Good Morning America, is the tall man pictured here with a VERY pregnant, fat me…it was yeeeeaaars ago, OK!?  Recognize MIT’s Marvin Minsky, Penn and Teller, ABC’s John Stosell, Robin Roberts and Antonio Mora? Hartman and Mora cohosted the Discover Technology Awards, a program I directed. But I digress… the article’s written by Norman Augustine, an engineer and former CEO of Lockheed Martin, who addresses his “concerns about the impacts current trends will have on his field.” *

If you’ve stayed through that intro, you deserve a mind-boggling excerpt from this article: “Students in grades 5-8 have a 98% chance of having a science teacher who does not have a degree in science.”

Read the piece titled Race to the Bottom and take note that it’s not all bad news. In fact,  I’ll be back with a look at how and why U.S. adults are outpacing other nations when it comes to science literacy…while our kids continue to lag far behind.  (9/29 addition: Here’s a related article on Why the World Needs More Engineers. Thanks, subscriber Bart, for sending this to us.)

*Augustine and Hartman go back to 1987 when Hartman produced a prime time documentary on National Defense and the U.S. Military.  I should mention that Hartman wants readers to know that it was Tony Borotto, a retired aviator, who sent him Augustine’s article.

Want to support science literacy, citizen science, and participatory science and technology policy? Have I got a deal for YOU!

Buy a ScienceCheerleader.com T-shirt. (Pass the Science Cheerleader’s Brain Makeover adult science literacy quiz and get $4 bucks off the price.)

Send us a picture of you or a pal WEARING the shirt and we will post it here on sciencecheerleader.com.

GOOOO Science!

An interactive report from Sarah:

This week,  BBC News released findings from a poll indicating that 80% of British parents have been stumped by a science question posed by their children and 20% of those parents admitted to feeling silly when they were not able to produce an answer. Also, more than half of the 1,002 parents surveyed felt their children knew more about science than they did!

So, what’s the big deal if some adults just don’t know science?  Among other reasons, understanding some basic science principles allows citizens to participate in democracy more fully.  I could cite many political issues that are worth the effort it takes to research and understand the basic scientific principles involved in each of them. (”Effort” is very loosely defined here to include something as simple as watching these 76ers cheerleader videos and reading Professor Trefil’s related short blog posts on 18 big science ideas “every adult needs to know to be a science literate”.)  I’ve preached about this here on ScienceCheerleader.com but, until now–as a newlywed–never considered the possibility that knowing random scientific facts about the world around us will come in handy when David and I decide to have children. Because of our professions (we’re both researchers) we will be prepared to answer our child’s questions, such as: Why’s the sky blue? What makes a rainbow?  These were two of the top three most challenging questions in the BBC News poll.

I find this study both surprising and alarming because there are little resources to combat this problem.  Children will eventually get their questions answered by their teachers in school…but how will the parents brush up?  Short of going back to school, there are very few resources available for parents to learn more about the every day scientific wonders that surround us all…until now. (more…)

Some of you have asked to see the video of the Two Cultures event at the NY Academy of Sciences (I was a panelist for the Science and Policy discussion). Two main architects of this event were Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, authors of Unscientific America, a book on the crisis of scientific illiteracy. Speaking of which, see how YOU stack up against others who’ve taken this brief, basic science literacy quiz.

Here’s a note from Shawn Otto, CEO of Science Debate, and a link to the videos.

On May 9, 2009 we co-organized and co-hosted a conference with our friends at the New York Academy of Sciences marking the 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” lecture.   Snow famously complained of a “gulf of mutual incomprehension between science and the humanities.”

That gulf now exists between science and policymaking, and in an age when the world’s greatest challenges revolve around science and engineering, it must be overcome.  This is the focus of our work at Science Debate.

The conference proceedings, including video of the presentations, are now up at the New York Academy of Sciences website.  We hope you can join us online as we explore issues and strategies, with keynote addresses by: (more…)