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By Dr. Dave Watson (Published 7/03)
Among the most enduring memories of summer for many of us is likely some type of camp. For about 400 or so young boys in Pearland and Friendswood, and for nearly 200 adult volunteers, this year's reminiscences may well be associated with Cub Scout Twilight Camp. Each afternoon for a week during June, Frankie Carter Randolph Park, along the banks of Clear Creek on the southern border of Harris County, served as the venue for a great gathering of scouts and their adult leaders. The theme was Space, and the energy level was high. With grimy faces, and sweaty brows, the boys and their leaders moved from activity to activity, enjoying themselves in spite of the heat and mosquitoes. Ice water, bug spray, and positive attitudes were all there in abundance. Volunteers assisted the boys in hammering and painting, playing sports, shooting beebee guns and arrows, and most interesting from my perspective, figuring out how airplanes fly. They were learning about science, even while they thought they were off at camp simply to have a good time. Why does this matter, and how was it accomplished. Let's look over some facts.
Much has been made of the notion that a shortage of scientists and engineers either already exists here in the United States, or that one is developing. Not everyone agrees. Writing in a recent issue The Scientist, a weekly newsmagazine, journalist Daniel Greenberg asserts that, in many fields a "glut" actually exists. Bolstering his claims concerning what he calls the "mythical scientist shortage" is a recent issue paper by the RAND Institute, entitled "Is There a Shortage of Scientists and Engineers? How Would We Know?" (http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP241/index.html). The RAND study reports that, broadly speaking, production of PhDs has not been declining in the United States, and that jobs in science and engineering at this level have not gone unfilled. Interestingly, the fraction of young men and women in this country obtaining first, or Bachelor's level, degrees in science and engineering relative to the total population has risen over the past three decades. What is also true, however, as pointed out both in the RAND white paper and in a newly released study from the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology ("The Best and Brightest for Science: Is There a Problem Here?"; http://www.cpst.org/BBIssues.pdf), is that in Engineering, Mathematics and the Physical Sciences, sharp declines have occurred in the numbers of American-born doctoral students over the past decade. Further, Greenberg argues that while we have never trained enough homegrown scientists, we've not just survived, but in fact prospered because of immigration, in essence "cherry-picking" the best of the best, in his words.
We might have, in theory, gone merrily on as before were it not for two confounding variables. The first is the events of September 11th, 2001; National Academy of Sciences President Bruce Alberts has warned that there are not enough U.S. citizens to fill our graduate schools and postdoctoral fellowship positions in the face of more stringent restrictions on the entry of foreign-born trainees. The second is that our major competitors in science and engineering, Western Europe and Japan, have not stood still. While we should be pleased that more of our 24 year olds are earning first degrees in engineering and the sciences, we should also pay close attention to the fact that the UK, France, Germany, Canada and Japan have all dramatically improved in this area, such that our percentage of first degrees in the sciences and engineering now trails all of these countries.
The question is what to do, especially considering that this so-called glut could evaporate more quickly than our ability to detect it. Here are two suggestions from the RAND institute. First, increase federal support for research in the affected areas. A strong model already exists for this approach, where a doubling of the National Institutes of Health budget over the past five years has resulted, at least in part, in an increase in American graduate students in the Biological Sciences. A second important goal should be to reverse the trend toward longer stays in graduate school prior to completion of the degree by creating training paths more akin to those leading to professional degrees (e.g. medicine or law). An advanced degree in a basic science, in particular, is an open-ended proposition of unknown duration, subject to a number of competing factors, many of which do not favor the student.
Did you know that a functional wind tunnel can be made from the following: a 16 inch electric room fan; a cardboard box; a six foot section of galvanized stove pipe; and a sheet of clear acetate (normally used for making overhead charts)? Elaine Stephens, a NASA Johnson Space Center engineer does, and she brought several she had made with her to Twilight Camp. Experimental styrofoam aircraft carved from meat trays by our scouts were tethered inside, the wind was switched on, and (in some cases) the creations rose into the slipstream. Not only did aircraft fly, young minds soared. Oh yes, their faces were brown, yellow, or white, but they all wore Cub Scout blue and they were all were young Americans. Let's hope at least some of them will be scientists.
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Dr. Dave Watson is InDyne, Inc.'s Program Manager for Peer Review for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, as well as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. In his free time, Dr. Dave serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Pearland Independent School District, where all four of he and his wife Fay's children are currently students.
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