Challenges of Science Education Topic of Talk
Jay Labov, a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, will address the challenges today’s science educators face during “Evolution and Sustainability: Rethinking Science Education,” a talk sponsored by Alma College’s Center for Responsible Leadership.
The event, which will be held in the Remick Heritage Center at Alma College on Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 7:30 p.m., is free and open to the community.
Labov, a former biology professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, is familiar with the educational guidelines of teaching science. He currently serves as the senior advisor for education and communication for the National Research Council’s Center for Education.
Jay Labov
With stronger science-based general education requirements in place and an emerging integrated health program, science education is important to Alma College, says Murray Borrello, geology instructor and co-director of the Center for Responsible Leadership.
“What Jay will bring to Alma is some insight about what path scientists and science educators should be taking,” says Borrello. “He understands what the sticking points are.”
There are many challenges the science community has to meet within the next decade or two, including confronting complex global issues such as climate change and sustainability.
“These are not just significant problems, but they’re also problems that are hard to get a grasp on,” says Borrello. “Jay is able to explain them in a very concrete way.”
Labov also will address how science educators have failed in their duty to prepare students to teach science. He will discuss what educators need to know—and do—to effectively prevent this from continuing to happen.
But students who only take a few science courses during their undergraduate academic careers can’t be forgotten, says Borrello—they, too, vote on these global issues.
"Jay’s address will help even those who are not students or practitioners of science to understand what science is, how it is different from other ways of thinking about the world, and how it may best inform the public policies that affect all of us,” says Micheal Vickery, communications professor and co-director of the Alma College Center for Responsible Leadership.
The Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow program is a service of the Council of Independent Colleges. The program, which brings prominent artists, journalists, and other professionals to campuses across the country for weeklong residencies of teaching and dialogue, has been at Alma College for more than 20 years.
Posted: Sun, January 17th, 2010 at 9:00AM
