Help Improve Education

School teachers work hard for the education of our next generation. Without them, the next generation of science and technology visionaries may never get the education they need in order to create our future. And one of the tools that these teachers use to teach their students is classroom projects. But many (most) of these projects require materials for the students to use and learn from, and those materials cost money. Money that our all-too-often underpaid teachers just don't have.

That's where DonorsChoose.org comes in. DonorsChoose.org is a website that allows teachers to place requests detailing the projects they want to ofter their students, the materials that they will need, and what the total cost will be. And it allows the general public (that's you and me) to see these requests and donate to help fund them.

You can search for projects by a variety of conditions including keyword, geographic area (state, county, school district, and even specific schools), how much total money they need, whether they have already received donations, whether or not that particular classroom has ever received funding before, what types of resources are needed, subject areas, grade levels, and more.

Here's your chance to help the education situation and maybe help close the STEM education gap at the same time.

STEM Education Follow-Up

When I reported yesterday that the U.S. is falling behind a set of goals for education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields set by a coalition of business groups, I apparently touched on a hot topic. There has been some aggressive discussion in the comments, enough to lead me to do some research of my own into the statistics.

All of the numbers that I'm going to use come from a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) that tallied bachelor's degrees granted in 2005-2006.

From the numbers, I have broken down the results into the fields that I consider to be directly related to the STEM goals, and from my calculations there were less than a quarter of a million graduates in those fields in 2005-2006, or roughly one-sixth of all graduates from bachelor's degree granting programs.

By far the largest category was business degrees, granted to more than 318,000 students in that time period. That's more than for all STEM fields combined, and could possibly be attributed to people's desire for money or to get ahead in the world. Obviously business is a clearer path than science for financial gain.

But then how do you explain the fact that the second largest category is Social Sciences and History, with 161,485 graduates? And the third highest is Education, with 107,238. You'll never convince me that people are going into those fields for the money. Or the roughly 100,000 people that majored in English Language and Literature/Letters or Liberal Arts, General Studies, and Humanities.

So if it's not for the money, then why are American students going into fields other than science, technology, engineering, and math? I think there are several problems, but the biggest one is one that is endemic to our society. Most Americans want the easy path, and STEM fields are hard. There's no glamour, no glory, no high profile recognition or—as pointed out repeatedly—no massive paychecks. We haven't done enough to entice people to pursue these fields. It's cultural.

Want proof? The numbers are broken down by ethnic groups, and they're pretty telling. Here are the percentages for various ethnic groups in terms of what percentage of graduates in that ethnic group are graduating with degrees in STEM fields:

• Whites - 15.00%
• Blacks - 13.02%
• Hispanices - 13.28%
• Asians - 27.96%
• Native Americans - 14.05%

There is obviously a cultural bias in Asian cultures toward STEM fields that we lack in American culture. You want something else that's telling? There are also numbers for non-resident aliens—students from outside the U.S. who are here just to get their education and then, generally, go home. 25.72% of them are in STEM fields, and more than a third are attending our business schools.

And right now, we're letting them get these degrees that our own citizens apparently have little interest in pursuing, and then we let them go back to their own countries to invent things, start businesses, and grow their local economies. Now, I'm all for growing economies around the world... a rising tide lifts all boats, after all. But the reason the business groups were pushing for increased enrollment and graduation in STEM fields was to keep America competitive in the future. If all of the new ideas and new tech are coming from other countries, then the U.S. may lose one of the few economic strengths we currently have.

One final point I feel that I need to make. In some fields—especially computer technology—college degrees don't mean as much as people, including this coalition of business groups, might think. I know a lot of people who work in Information Technology; I've been in the field for thirteen years myself. And many of those people don't have their degrees in a computer-related field. Heck, I don't have my degree at all (I know, sixteen years of college and 160 credit hours, I should have my MBA or Ph.D. by now), and neither do several of the other people I know. Some have degrees in English literature or psychology. One has a degree in math and two in electrical engineering. One programmer even has his degree in music.

At the same time, I know a woman with a degree in computer and electrical engineering from a prestigious school who currently, I believe, works the phone banks for a policital organization. My point is that just counting degrees granted does not accurately predict how many people are going to be working in what fields. And you might be surprised with the amount of creativity, ingenuity, and industriousness that Americans will continue to display in the future.

But more people studying STEM fields would certainly help.

U.S. Falling Behind STEM Education Goals

CNN is reporting that the U.S. is lagging behind goals set three years ago by a consortium of business groups to increase college graduations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields by 2015. Apparently, the number of bachelor's destrees awarded in the U.S. each year in those fields has stalled at about 225,000, well short of the groups' goal of 400,000.

However, it's only been three years. The people graduating this year were already in college when these goals were set. So unless part of their strategy has been to get people to switch majors, we'd be unlikely to see much in the way of results by now. As Susan Traiman, director of education and workforce policy for the Business Roundtable, points out in the article, "It still takes a minimum of 17 years to produce an engineer if you consider K-12 plus four years of colleges."

Which begs the question of how these business groups thought that they'd be able to double the number of graduates in only 10 years. Now, I agree that we need to increase graduates in these fields in order to remain competitive on the world stage—and let's not forget that many of the 225,000 graduates we're producing now in these fields are actually foreign students—but I don't think we can expect a network of business groups to say that it needs to happen and have it magically happen overnight. It's going to take time and hard work, and both of those are going on right now.

The future is coming, and the U.S., I suspect, will continue to lead the way in these fields for quite a while yet.

Shortage of Cadavers for Research and Education

The Los Angeles Times reports that organizations that distribute cadavers for medical schools and research are suffering shortages. It seems that more people are being cremated or donating their tissues piecemeal rather than donating whole corpses for research or educational purposes.

As a result, medical schools are not receiving enough corpses for students to practice and learn on, and are having to turn students away from important classes. The next time you're in the hospital for surgery and you see your young surgeon getting ready, think about whether or not he or she has had enough practice before getting to you.

For as long as I've been writing this blog, I've encouraged people to dedicate part of their time and/or resources to help advance science and technology. If you donate your body for research or educational purposes, you can continue to contribute to advancement even after your death. Plus, it could save your loved ones from having to spend money on burial.

Debating Science: Practical Reasoning and Nanotechnology

This fall, from September 3, 2007, to December 14, 2007, the University of Montana will be offering a web-based course entitled Debating Science: Practical Reasoning and Nanotechnology. If you want a say in the debate about the utility and safety of nanotechnology, this is your chance.

The course instructors are Christopher Preston, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The University of Montana, and Catherine Murphy, the Guy F. Lipscomb Professor of Chemistry at the University of South Carolina.