Transcriber: Einat Sprinzak Reviewer: Denise RQ
If a pair of identical twins
marries another pair of identical twins,
will their kids be identical?
(Laughter)
Ever thought about this one?
(Laughter)
I had to answer this
when I was a high school biology teacher.
Now that I am a professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology,
and I studied Science Education and Science Communication
for over a decade,
I still find these curiosity questions fascinating.
My personal favorite is, "Does a whale have a bellybutton?"
(Laughter)
These questions led me to ask:
"What is it that people want to know about science and why?"
Can we use what people want to know about science
in order to teach them what we, as educators,
want them to know about science?
This way we make science education so much more relevant
for people of all ages and all walks of life.
Interest is highly important in science education.
First of all, people who are interested
pay attention long enough for learning to take place.
Kids who are interested in science
are much more likely to take
advanced studies in science and scientific careers.
This is important for us as a society
because this is the next generation of scientists and engineers.
But there is another reason why we teach science to everybody,
not just the kids who want to be scientists one day.
And that is that each and every one of us need some science knowledge
in order to make real world decisions in our lives.
"My kid has the flu, should I give him antibiotics?"
"What is genetically modified food?"
"How is it different from other crops?"
Just to give two examples.
So, how can we tell if we are giving people
the science information they need and want to know?
Well, within science education
we solve usually this problem instantly.
We simply don't care what our students want to know.
(Laughter)
Science educators, teachers, curriculum developers,
all want to give students a relevant curriculum.
Student-centered materials.
The problem is they define relevance from their own perspective.
In a way they are saying
what the educational system thinks
should be meaningful and interesting to students.
This line of thinking
had the outcome
of repeatedly coming up
with a list of things
that every person in this science-rich, technology-based society
should know about science.
We test to see if students know it. They do not.
We are disappointed. We implement an educational reform.
We test again. And we are disappointed again.
(Laughter)
But what if we got it all wrong?
If you're saying that the reason we teach science to everybody
is that they have to use science in their own lives,
in their own non-science public and private life,
it logically follows we should turn to life itself,
to these non-science situations,
to see what people need and want to know about science.
And there is so much people want to know.
Let's start with students for example.
Doesn't it make sense
that a relevant curriculum
would actually address the things that students want to know?
Well, in one of our studies,
we asked high school students
to write down their own questions,
from three topics from the biology curriculum.
We took these hundreds of questions,
that they wrote down that they want to learn about,
and we gave them to some experienced high school biology teachers.
And we asked the teachers,
"Are these questions being addressed by the content you have to teach?"
Their answer was very troubling.
Only half of the questions that the students asked
about the same topics that they are teaching,
— genetics, reproduction, whatever —
were answered or addressed by the curriculum.
All the rest, hundreds of questions,
will not be touched in class
unless the teacher decides to teach more than he or she has to.
So, I'm asking you now,
in what way is the curriculum relevant
if it ignores and marginalizes
the interest of those it needs to serve?
And there is so much students want to know about science:
"How come we drink liquids in different colors
but urine is always yellowish?"
(Laughter)
"Is it possible to tame a lion and turn it into a vegetarian?"
(Laughter)
"How come we don't feel we are growing up?"
And very importantly,
"When you go on a diet, where does the fat go?"
(Laughter)
It would be very wrong of us to say that these are stupid questions.
Or, as I once heard a teacher say,
"If we answer your questions all day long
we would not have time to learn."
(Laughter)
This is the way to learn!
In my research group we developed a way
to unleash the power of students' interest within science class
and use their questions within science teaching.
Do you remember the question about the pairs of identical twins?
Isn't that a beautiful trigger to talk about meiosis,
recombination, nature vs. nurture?
"How come the sun burns?"
We can use that to speak about combustion,
about nuclear fusion.
Just like a shadow government
that gives voice to parties currently not in office,
our shadow curriculum gives voice to those who have no power
upon deciding what the formal curriculum will include
but are the ones most influenced by it.
The shadow curriculum
takes the existing curriculum
and maps into it students' interests.
It allows teachers to find out what their students want to know
and will give them the ability,
the information and activities that they can use
in order to bridge students' interests and national requirements.
But people are not students forever,
actually most of their lives they are not students.
And when adults need some information about science and technology
they go to the internet.
This is their primary source of information
about science and technology.
Queries that people put on search engines are very much like questions.
They can tell us what kind of information
people are interested in having and need to have.
What is it that they are looking for?
Can we use these types of questions
to gain information of what people are looking for?
So, in another study we did,
we used publicly available data about searches in Google.
We found out that many of these searches
have to do with school or university content
that are performed during the academic year.
But many times, many many times,
people hear or read something in the media
and they get so interested
that they just go online to search for more information
just because they want to know more.
What is it that they want to know more?
Can we use this data
in order to help them pursue their own goals,
instead of trying to shove science down their throats?
Science that they perceive as uninteresting and irrelevant?
See for example what happens
when there is a new Nobel laureate,
new Nobel Prize winner.
When Dan Shechtman won the chemistry Nobel Prize in 2011
first of all, there was this surge of media interest.
His name, mentions of his name in Google news went up
from almost zero to almost 3000, in a matter of ten hours.
But something else happened at the same time.
Do you see this surge of interest?
That's users searching for Shechtman and for quasicrystals.
A key scientific concept in his work.
So, the media event, the Nobel prize announcement
created a teachable moment,
a short window of opportunity
in which people became interested in the underlying science.
And this is not happening only with Shechtman,
the same phenomenon happened with other Nobel winners, as well.
And it doesn't have to be an academic event.
Do you remember when actress Angelina Jolie
announced her preventive mastectomy?
Look and see what happened to searches for BRCA mutation.
Do you see this surge of interest? This window of opportunity?
This teachable moment for learning about the underlying science?
We are approaching the end of my talk now.
By now I believe that I've convinced you that many people,
adults, teens, children,
are interested in science and we should build on this interest.
Capitalize in a flexible way on these teachable moments
in order to open the door for meaningful learning to take place.
How?
Well, different educators can choose the strategy and the intensity
with which to bring students' voices into their class.
To me, what's important is the principle:
Science education should be relevant.
It cannot be relevant
if it marginalizes the interest of those it needs to serve.
So, does a whale have a belly button?
Well, of course, it does, it's a mammal.
It used to have an umbilical cord.
And isn't that a wonderful way
to start talking about mammalian reproduction?
Thank you.
(Applause)