Science Knowledge: Still down

Today's New York Times has an article about the state of science education in America. As you might expect, we're not doing well. Here are a few interesting points:

Citizens need to know science more now than in the past because issues today are based more on science. Example: stem cells, global warming.

Students who attend college often have to take a science class. Not so in high school. So, people who attend college have some science education but students (about half of all students) only attend high school and are, therefore, ill-learned in science.

Teachers of science are hard to come-by because we pay them so little.

So, what to do?

I think we need to make science a bigger part of the news, and media in general. We need to have newspaper, web articles, and radio shows, discuss the science behind and within an article, not just the political sides of a story. When there's an article about stem cells, there should be a side bar about cells in general. When there's a story about Tanzania, there should be a map showing the location. (Our geographical knowledges is not good either.)

That's a start, but only a start.

(Hat tip: Ilachina)