A Secondary School Student Makes a Suggestion. (May 6, 2011)

Aaron Krolik a secondary school student in Chapel Hill North Carolina has written to Science with the following suggestion; perhaps the Australian Academy of Science, our new Chief Scientist and the appropriate state and federal ministers might consider actively pursuing his proposal.

As a high school student looking to pursue science, I was happy to read J. Durant and A. Ibrahim's Editorial “Celebrating the culture of science” (11 March, p. 1242). I feel that engaging the public in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) is an often-overlooked aspect of bringing STEM into the mainstream.

I believe that before there can be a revolution in STEM education, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way our culture and society embrace STEM, beginning with the youngest age groups. STEM taught in the classroom should be reinforced at the dinner table and on the school bus. Presently STEM is regarded by both students and teachers as a static subject, instead of appreciated as an interactive and dynamic field.

To help cultivate an infectious interest in STEM, I believe that the idea of celebrating STEM should proliferate into the classroom. I propose a graduate school–style approach to primary and secondary school STEM education.

This curriculum would not focus only on the core material, but would also emphasize current research in each subject. I think that a freely available journal publication that takes groundbreaking current STEM reports and edits them for a younger audience should be created and integrated into the classroom.

Incorporating journal discussions in the classroom would stimulate the teachers who choose the papers and pique the curiosity of the students. Only then, when students are self-motivated by curiosity to study STEM, will they go on to achieve STEM excellence.