The key to fixing the U.S. science education gap is outside of class

On Tuesday, a shocking report about the condition of the U.S. education system made headlines in the biggest news outlets. The 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that this generation of school children has a painfully low percentage of scientific proficiency. Approximately two-thirds of children in the fourth grade in 2009 lacked science proficiency, and that number reached almost 80% among high school seniors.

The U.S., it appears, has been sorely neglecting science education.

So it was only fitting that President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday evening highlighted how indispensible science is to Americans for future growth.

"The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations," President Obama said. "America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us as citizens, and as parents are willing to do what's necessary to give every child a chance to succeed."

"That responsibility begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities," the President continued. "It's family that first instills the love of learning in a child. Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done. We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair."

The youth's science skills are not being built within the walls of their classrooms, and they're not being helped outside them, either.

But it is our casual interest in science that could have the biggest possible impact on science education.

"Classrooms are where fundamental concepts are first encountered, and where students' progress towards comprehension of them is measured. But -- particularly in fields like science and technology -- the best scenario for learning is one in which, outside the classroom, students remain immersed in curiosity, discovery, and experimentation," said Vikram Savkar, Senior Vice President and Publishing Director at Nature Publishing. "The more good avenues for extracurricular science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) involvement are readily available for students, the faster we will reach our national targets."

Nature Education has been encouraging the extracurricular study of science with its free service Scitable since early 2009. The service is an online science education community strengthened by free scientific journal articles from the Nature Publishing Group.

While the Obama administration can tackle educational reform, parents, mentors, or any adult with an impressionable youth in their life can take steps to make science a bigger part of their world.

"Science museums such as my local museum, the Boston Museum of Science are becoming increasingly adept at using technology to create highly interactive experiences that children love," Savkar shared with Betanews today. "There are a number of quality internet sites, like TryScience, where students can perform virtual experiments. Most major STEM-related corporations create hands-on activities for children -- in a particularly fun one, Raytheon developed a tool that allows kids to design their own rollercoaster. Parents can research which companies in their area have exhibits like this one," Savkar said.

But at the heart of it, getting kids interested in science outside of the classroom can be as simple as getting your hands dirty.

"Personally, I'm still in favor of the old fashioned art of tinkering - taking apart an old, early computer and trying to put [it] back together again, for instance, launched me into several years of computer science classes," Savkar admitted. "I tend to think that encouraging kids early on to just play with things - radios, magnifying glasses, telescopes -- will make a tremendous difference in their STEM aptitude in the long run."

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