Hi. It's Paul Andersen and this is disciplinary core idea ETS2B. It's on the
influence of science, engineering and technology on society and the natural world. Wow. That's
a mouthful. And this is also the last video. It's the last video of the Next Generation
Science Standards that I've made. Taking a look at the framework. I hope it's been beneficial
to you. I know for me I have a better understanding of how the foundation works. And so I want
to show you how STEM, in other words science, technology, engineering and math are impacting
the world. And so let's take a look at this. This is the picture of the lights on the earth.
And so you can see where there are areas of high lights at night and low lights. And so
this is a NASA image. Now it doesn't show you where there's high population. Because
if you look right here we've got lots of lights. But it's clearly going to be more population
if we were to look to China or India. But it does show where we have a high amount of
technology. And so if we look at the world population, let's see how that's changed over
time. So in this graph let me show you what we've got. We've got world population on this
side. This would be 7 billion right here. And this is current day. So we're right here
and this is the last 12,000 years. So if I kind of animate that graph, let's take a look
at it. So this is what the population has been over time. And it's really taken off
recently. And so we've seen exponential growth. This, if I remember right is agriculture.
That's why we see human population taking off here. And this is going to be that Industrial
Revolution. That's why it really takes off. And so the world population is growing. And
as it does that it's going to require more natural resources from the earth itself. And
also as we add science and technology, things like agriculture, transportation, medicine,
housing and energy are all going to have direct impacts back on the earth itself. And so as
we choose new technologies, we have to make sure that we're weighing the costs and the
benefits. But also we have to be looking out for risks. And so global warming is an example
of that. Climate change is going to be something that we're going to have to deal with in the
future. And so how do we look at costs, benefits and risks of something that hasn't happened?
Well mathematical models help out. We can use mathematical models to predict what's
going to happen in the future and then make wise decisions based on that. Because if we
look at this, science and engineering, as I've shown you, are going to impact society.
In other words as we get new advances, it's going to impact ourselves. It's going to impact
us. But also it goes both ways. We can impact science and technology as well through regulation.
And so let me give you an example. I live near Salt Lake City. And we like to go down
there in the winter and go skiing. And it's a beautiful city. It's right up against the
Rockies. It's gorgeous. But one thing I've noted over the last few years is it's got
smoggier and smoggier. They have awful air pollution in Salt Lake City. And it's a product
of technology. More people. More industry. But also their geography is kind of a bummer
where the wind blows right up against the Rockies. And so they're going to have to make
some decisions, regulation, to science and technology if they want to get rid of that
as a problem. So what's the teaching progression? How do we teach this in our schools? Well
in the lower elementary grades we want to start talking about technology. And how technology
is wonderful. It touches every part of our life and it makes our lives better. But also
you want to emphasize that all technology that we have requires natural resources. And
as we pull those from the earth we're impacting the earth itself. As we move into the upper
elementary grades we want to talk about how engineering and science change over time.
And so the engineering designs and the technology that we have today, for example this is the
most popular car on the planet, the Ford Focus, it's going to work today. But we had a totally
different design, this is a 1957 Chevy, back in the past. And so that was a good solution
for back then. And in the future the Ford Focus is going to look outdated. Safety outdated.
Its fuel supply is going to remain outdated. And so as time changes our engineering solutions
change as well. As we move into middle school we want to talk about not only time is going
to affect engineering and science and technology. But also place. Where you are one the planet.
And so the solutions here in the United States are going to be different than those in a
different country at a different time. And so what we have to do is we have to locally
weigh those costs, benefits and then put those agains the risks. And so as we move forward
into high school we want to talk about science and engineering and how they're going to impact
society. But in the future we may have to have society impacting science and engineering.
Let me give you an example. Last summer I visited China. And I went to Shanghai. And
I went up in the top of this building. You go way up in the top. I think it's the second
tallest building in the world. And you see all of this technology. You see all of society
around there. And so as we're doing that we're impacting the earth itself. And eventually
as we start to get consequences that we don't like, we're going to have to use regulations
to mediate science and engineering. But the nice thing about that is that there are going
to be solutions for a lot of the problems that we have. So that's the last video. Kind
of ties everything we've talked about through this whole thing. And I hope that really was
helpful.