Science Literacy – Grassroot Attempts to Combat America’s Low Science Literacy and Increase STEM Participation
Dr. Helms is interested in science outreach and offered us an opportunity to help with Science Overdrive, a nonprofit, which runs a workshop dedicated to equipping elementary school teachers with the tools necessary to teach science to kids. The workshop equips these teachers with affordable laboratory equipment, lesson plans, and training in regards to how to use everything. Laura Akesson, an University of Richmond alum and the founder of Science Overdrive, was point person during our time volunteering. While we completed our assignment, which was assembling the lab equipment that would be given away, I was able to have a short conversation with her and other coordinators regarding science literacy in America.
I started the conversation by asking how she feels about the low science literacy of the general population and did she have an idea of its’ cause. She talked about the idea of “not liking science” as the biggest issue with science literacy. There was a discussion with students ruling out science even if they have the potential do well in the field because they do not enjoy it. I was then informed that if a student did not like math by 6th grade then they would most likely always believe that they are not great at math and the same trend follows with science, with the cut off being 8th grade. This harkens back to Leadership 102, when talking about the idea of intelligence, and how the appraisal of accomplishments through complimenting intelligence over hard work causes the recipient to have a more black and white idea of what they can or cannot do (ie. I’m not smart enough to do science). The idea of “not being smart enough” deters students from actually trying and achieving when they run up against resistance.
They believe this apathy towards STEM subjects come from a weak foundation from elementary school teacher; one statistic that was shared was that the lowest quartile of college graduates end up becoming elementary school teachers. She clarified that she didn’t believe that they weren’t qualified but to show that many people who are great a science don’t go into teaching school children. If you have a teacher that isn’t strong in science or doesn’t enjoy science then you build a weak foundation, which causes students to hit a wall when moving up through the grades. This is where Science Overdrive comes in, attempting to give teachers a better understanding in the hopes of empower students that they deal with.
Before my response, just remember to please select a category for your reflection (or you can select multiple categories). I’m not exactly sure which prompt you are addressing based on this post’s title, but when uncategorized, the reflections don’t show up appropriately and I have to go looking for them. Now to my response… this doesn’t really address any of the prompts, but it is nonetheless very interesting. Indeed, there is a shortage strong k-12 teachers in general and so yes, I imagine that those teaching what might be considered more challenging subjects (like math, science) have greater challenges. There is literature that the same holds true regarding art; that by 4th or 5th grade students will tell you they are not artistic as they have become very aware of the critique of others. Really interesting and thoughtful discussion, but you do need to address the prompts provided as well.