TO THE EDITOR:
I recently manned a table at the UNC Science Expo spearheaded by Morehead Planetarium. My table’s label read like I was presenting at a chemistry conference, but it was far less nerve-wracking to present fun science to primary school kids than graduate research to electrochemistry or neuroscience masters.
My electronic-snap-circuit table was happily mobbed throughout the event. Most kids frantically tried to build something structural while paying little attention as I rattled on about how we enable the electrons crammed into a battery’s negative side to get to the emptier positive side while making them do work, like illuminating a light bulb.
In my few adult conversations, the main theme was how to keep young people, including graduate students and especially females, interested in science. We agreed they need early exposure to hands-on scientific discovery, regardless of whether we think they’re old (or smart) enough to understand it.
Given the decades-long emphasis of early education on math and literacy at the expense of science, educational reforms have focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and, consequently, STEAM (add arts), meaning our children are benefitting from an increasingly holistic public education that encourages rather than intimidates their natural inclinations toward imagination and discovery.
Melissa Rooney
Class of ’98
