🚀 go-pugleaf

The featured article from the July issue of Bio/Technology examines the 
problem of "science illiteracy." Here is an excerpt from "A Vital Interest: 
Science Education and the Biotech Industry" by Desmond Mascarenhas.
__________________________________________________________________________

	Much has been said publicly about fiscal and social 
deficits in the U.S., but much less about our growing 
scientific illiteracy as a nation. Surveys quoted in a 
recent Washington Post article suggest that "not more than 7 
percent" of the general public is scientifically literate, 
even "by relatively lenient standards." In a world economy 
increasingly driven by technological competitiveness, the 
latter deficit could prove to be the most damaging.


	The philosophical foundation of the current drive to 
revitalize U.S. science education in general, and biology 
teaching in particular, can be traced to the American 
Association for the Advancement of Scienceis (Washington, 
D.C.) Project 2061, and to the National Academy of Sciences 
(Washington, D.C.) 1989 report, "Fulfilling the Promise: 
Biology Education in Our Nationis Schools." Among the prime 
legacies of these initiatives is the notion that leadership 
in reform must come from scientists, especially in the form 
of scientist-teacher partnerships which will directly create 
new classroom activities and curricula.


	In recent years these perceptions have percolated through the 
state frameworks to the local level and are now generally 
accepted. Nevertheless, scientist-teacher partnerships are 
exceedingly difficult to arrange in any more than a sporadic 
fashion, and high-quality new curricula in the biosciences are few 
and far between.


	Such partnerships as do exist tend to be between 
academic scientists and kindergarten-12th grade teachers. 
These efforts often result in activities designed to teach 
the techniques and concepts of modern biology via simple 
labs (restriction digests, bacterial transformation) 
suitable for the high school classroom. 


	Industry bioscientists are conspicuously absent from 
this arena despite the unique advantages they could bring to 
bear upon curriculum development: By using their knowledge 
of "real-world" applications of scientific concepts, for 
example, these individuals could help create classroom 
activities which best illustrate the link between theory and 
practice-an essential ingredient of effective curricula in todayis 
classroom.


	The Clinton administrationis apparent love affair with 
applied science has spawned the perception that 
"biotechnology education" programs are likely to enjoy easy 
access to future education dollars. Savvy educators who 
align themselves with "technology" modules also find 
themselves in the mainstream of another popular trend in 
science teaching: the move towards integrated curricula. One 
high school teacher uses a reading of Brave New World as a 
backdrop to a DNA fingerprinting lab.


	Nevertheless, in reality, few of these activities (see 
sidebar about PROBE) incorporate that crucial connection 
with real-world applications that todayis students-unlike 
those of a generation ago-consider a prerequisite to their 
own "buy-in" to the educational process, and which, in any 
case, should be part of any respectable biotechnology 
education program. 
__________________________________________________________________

So begins this issue's featured article from Bio/Technology.

This article and others from Bio/Technology and additional publications
can be viewed at no charge on The Electronic Newsstand, a service which
collects articles, editorials, and table of contents from over 100
magazines and provides them to the Global Internet community.

Access to The Electronic Newsstand is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a 
week via Gopher, an information navigation and retrieval technology from the
University of Minnesota.

For those without a local Gopher client program, The Electronic Newsstand
provides a telnet account which will allow you to use a text based Gopher
client to access our service.

To access The Electronic Newsstand, 

	via Local Gopher Client:

		Hostname:	gopher.internet.com
		Port:		2100

	via the Gopher Home Menu at U of Minn:

		Other Gopher and Information Servers/
		  North America/
		    USA/
		      General/
			The Electronic Newsstand (tm)

	via Gopher Link Information:

		Name=The Electronic Newsstand
		Type=1
		Port=2100
		Path=1/
		Host=gopher.internet.com

	via Telnet:

		Hostname: 	gopher.internet.com
		Loginname:	enews
		Password:	<not required>

	via World Wide Web:

		URL:		gopher://gopher.internet.com/

If you have any suggestions on how we might improve this service, or
need more information, please email  staff@enews.com

	--The Electronic Newsstand Staff