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Children losing interest in science

Posted on: Monday, 8 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

CHILDREN are turning away from science subjects at school, threatening the future of Britain's technology industry, according to the head of one of the country's leading science institutions.

Sir Peter Williams, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, will today say that schools must try and close the divide between sciences and humanities subjects if children are to be inspired into discovery like the great pioneers of the past.

Launching this year's BA Science Festival at the University of Salford, he warns that attitudes must urgently change in order for science and innovative technology to be sustained by future generations.

Sir Peter draws attention to the example of Michael Faraday, who not only shaped our understanding of electromagnetism, but was also a landscape painter and heavily involved with London's art world.

He said: "Faraday was perhaps one of the last great scientists to see himself equally at ease with the great writers, painters and philosophers of his generation."

Since his death, a "schism has arisen between arts and the humanities", and there now exist two cultures within sixth forms, "with worrying signs of interest in science waning", according to Sir Peter.

Last month it was revealed that all three of the major sciences - biology, chemistry and physics - were attracting fewer 'A' and Higher level candidates. Only in mathematics had numbers gone up since the previous year.

He said that similar trends could be seen in other countries, including Germany, Japan and the US, and keeping science alive in young people's minds was the key to ensuring its future.

More than 50 years ago, at the end of the Second World War, there were new inventions like radar and the jet engine, and in 1953 DNA was discovered, but in more recent times people have begun to question whether new advances, such as GM and cloning, have brought more risks than benefits.

Sir Peter added: "How much more sustainable might be the interest of future generations in the wonder of science if all our young remained involved with it on some level until their school leaving age.

"Go back to the days 50 years ago when I first studied science and you would find no trace of such brooding introspection. My generation came into this world at the end of a tragic war - but it was a conflict in which radar had been invented and penicillin had become the first ever widely-used antibiotic... science for countless youngsters of my generation did indeed offer a new frontier."

Despite his concerns, Sir Peter said the pace of scientific discovery would continue to "amaze us" in the 21st century, and that he did not expect to have seen the last of science's "grand challenges", such as quantum gravity or genomics.

But why it was proving so difficult to inspire young people with science remained a critical problem.

"In this respect I remain convinced that the arts and science divide ill-serves the nation - though I realise that there are no easy remedies for this."

Dr Peter Cotgreave, director of the pressure group Save British Science, an organisation which campaigns for greater awareness of science policy, said he believed the "knowledge economy often referred to by Tony Blair's government" depended on inspiring young people to continue with the subject.

He claimed that to achieve this, the lack of science teachers in schools has to be addressed. Dr Cotgreave said: "To understand why there are less people engaging with science subjects we need to understand what the causes are.

"Without question one of the very serious root causes of this is a drastic and very serious shortage of well qualified and trained science teachers.

"Because there are so few, and many have to cover other subject areas and are under enormous pressure, they do not have enough time to reinvigorate their knowledge of their own subject."

He added that he did not blame the media for "making up concerns" over issues such as GM and cloning and turning students off science.

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