WASHINGTON – Education Secretary Arne Duncan helped third-graders build battery-powered cars Wednesday, part of the latest push to help American pupils play catch-up with their Asian and European counterparts in the hard sciences.
The effort, a MacArthur Foundation program known as National Lab Day, tries to push hands-on learning by putting PhD’s in the classroom as volunteers. If kids like being in the chemistry lab, the idea goes, they’re more likely to be a chemist.
““A lot of these students don’t have a scientist that lives down the block or even their neighborhood,” said Duncan, who visited King Elementary in Southeast Washington. “This is a different world, it’s hard to envision that world, it’s hard to believe you can be part of that world.”
Educators have tried for years to boost student performance in math and science, often to little avail. U.S. students consistently score lower in the two subjects when compared to their peers in Japan, Russia and a slew of other countries, according to a 2009 study by the National Center for Education Statistics.
But it’s unclear what exactly would be needed change things in schools like King.
The Lab Day program works as a sort of social network for science teachers, area volunteers and certified techies. Educators post upcoming projects on a website and local experts can offer advice or arrange a classroom visit.
On Wednesday, certified engineers taught kids how to build small race cars out a 6-inch ruler, wooded wheels and a C-cell battery. Students then spent the rest of the morning conducting races on the classroom floor.
It might seem simple, educators said, but combined with federal dollars and tougher state education standards, it could help return America to the golden era of the space race.
“I don’t want people to see ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ and think science and technology education,” said James Brown, director of advocacy for the American Chemical Society. “That’s the kind of thing that national lab day is hitting at: making science and technology part of what’s cool about America.”
The problem of course comes down to the federal dollars.
The Obama administration proposed $300-million for science and technology education in its 2011 budget, an uptick of 66 percent. And on Wednesday, the House debated whether to reauthorize the America COMPTES Act, which would create a White House advisory committee on tech education.
“This can’t do it by itself,” Duncan said. “But if we had this going on in every classroom around the country, this’d be a huge deal.”