Break Dancing And Sideways Baseball Caps Make Science Cool?
from the seems-weak dept
What is it about people that once we grow into adults we forget how to relate to children? With growing worries over our education system, NASA and Honeywell are trying to interest kids in science by putting on multimedia plays that try to make science look cool. While some of the show does sound interesting and informative, a lot of it just sounds like they're trying too hard. Adding "chanting, break dancing, sideways baseball hats and a young actor playing scientist Isaac Newton" just sounds like adults trying to come up with a way to relate to kids. However, it seems like most kids will see through such things. Besides, why try to hide the actual science behind such gimmicks? If you want to interest kids in science by making it cool, then you need to actually make the science cool -- not just the people talking about science. Pretending that science has anything to do with break dancing and sideways baseball caps isn't going to get anyone very far. Focus on making the science itself cool, and the students will be plenty interested.
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No Subject Given
What they need is someone who is honestly interested in the field and shows some sort of genius for it, not someone trying to make a quick buck while finding cleaver ways to look like they're busy.
Glad to see NASA has finally joined the Corporate billions. (No wonder they've been failing so miserably lately.)
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Re: No Subject Given
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Blargh!
Please, won't someone JUST THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
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Re: Blargh!
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middle school is a tough age to reach
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idiots
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Pure idiocy
Please god, don't make ME sit through this.
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Why do we lose touch?
Perhaps it's time to tell these "punkass kids" about the possibilities of space exploration, new technologies, and the thrill of being the first person to do *anything* rather than a cartoon dog with sunglasses using idiom that's dated 10 years telling them girls might "go with them" if they "do science".
I think that would be bodaciously gnarly, and pretty rad at the same time.
Stop treating children like children, and they'll stop acting like children. Teenagers aren't stupid and can't be as easily manipulated as the marketing geniuses would like to believe.
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Dudical!!!
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No Subject Given
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science and coolness
Hopeless.
What assininity, to think that the scientific study of reality should be dumbed down, tarted up or made 'cool' for the benefit of loser brats.
Because basically, it's the kids attitudes that suck, not science. I suppose having the entire entertainment and fashion industries cater to your every whim pretty much guarantees a bad attitude, but still...you can't change what science IS.
Here's a fact, you young whippersnappers: Lots of interesting, worthwhile and NECESSARY things in life are not as quick-moving as an MTV video. They are not trippy, trendy or cool. Science requires sustained attention, a godawful amount of work and, sometimes, interacting with and RESPECTING people who not only aren't 'cool', but who actively don't give a crap about cool. (And a lot less 'blowing up' than you might think.) Truth, kiddies.
You can't make science something it is not, just to cater to people with deficient attention spans and an unwillingness to work.
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Re: science and coolness
While I think NASA's approach is a bit silly, it is right on par with the approach that I think trollificus would be if he/she was found in the class room.
Students will respect any teacher that gives them respect. It goes both ways. Growing up in an inner city school, with plenty of violence it is noteable that the few teachers that didn't have trouble with the trouble makers were the only teachers that treated the trouble makers like human beings and not trash.
The problems with the education system go way beyond how information is presented, and has more to do with the parents, teachers, and the administrators than we like to admit. And yes, I do belive that list is in order of importance).
Parents MUST parent, teachers must teach, and administrators must administer. Unfortunately, parents don't parent, too many teachers wine about what they don't have, and administrators don't administrate.
With the kind of negative vibe that runs through those three area's of a child's life, it is no wonder why children can be such aweful people to be with. Its all about their environment.
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Lecturing from the teens
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Re: Lecturing from the teens
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Re: Lecturing from the teens/edifice complex
An old person that is stupid was once a young person that was stupid. It takes stupid kids to make stupid adults.. get it?
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I'm so sick of hearing we need more buildings, books, equipment... stuff, if we're to succeed! BAH!
We don't need more stuff, or multi-media events, to make science interesting. We need interesting teachers. Teachers that know their subject matter backwards and forwards and teach with enthusiasm (Mr Wizard comes to mind.)
I had ONE interesting physics teacher in high school. With simple experiments, that anyone could make with materials found at home or wally-world, he turned the theoretical into the practical.
Teach those that can be taught and let rest get a degree in liberal arts.
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Re: Lecturing from the teens
If you, as an adult, think that you have experience being their age and you therefore know what hip trends to emulate in order to get today's kids interested in your educational cirriculum, you're quite misguided.
Trendy crap will never teach, and when it's five, ten, or twenty years outdated, it could actually make kids stupider. When you reinforce the attitude that school is "lame" by using such pathetic grabs for attention, they will want to pay attention even LESS.
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Will someone please...
I have a possible solution for them to make science kool...
Let them join forces and send all their neat surplus items and slightly outdated hardware to these schools and let them tinker/explore/invent/learn--maybe even come up with a competition that uses it and rewards the winners with scholarships, etc... They could even provide free help to kids via online or....?
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Re: Making science cool
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No Subject Given
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No Subject Given
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For what it's worth
How do you show the hours/days/weeks that are involved in studying stars before you know that you've discovered a new planet? Even if you're really interested in astronomy, that has to be the most boring part of the job.
Bill Nye was the best, though. He explained science an interesting yet entertaining way, and he didn't "teach down" to the viewer. That's what NASA needs to create.
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Re: For what it's worth
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breakdancing science
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