Scientist Involvement
It is apparent to us and to science educators across the country that there are far too few professional scientists and engineers working with school staff to improve science education. Help is needed in many areas, such as teacher education, materials development, policy advising, and political activism for science education. We helped to create a series of one-week summer institutes run by the National Science Resources Center for scientists to become informed about pre-college science education. The first took place at Caltech in March, 1992. With NSF and industry support, four more institutes have taken place since then, each attended by about 30 scientists and engineers who needed more background to participate in improving K-12 science education.
We have also worked with the National Academy of Sciences to help present one-day intensive workshops on K-12 science education reform at the national meetings of several scientific societies. CAPSI is described at the National Academy of Sciences Web site as an example of scientist-educator collaboration, at www.nas.edu/rise/examp.html. In addition, we have established a program at Caltech, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for scientist-educators to come on sabbatical fellowships for several months. They work on projects of their choice, enhancing our efforts and also their own. We are frequently consulted by other scientists who are interested in improving K-12 education, to share our experiences and what we have learned from them.