Science teaching in schools

This issue of SPA brings us up to date with developments in one of the most discussed and difficult areas of current science policy: how to ensure that more pupils study science subjects at school. Lord Broers lays out the recommendations of his House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology report on science teaching in schools. Paying attention to syllabuses and careers, teaching methods and recruitment, he offers the report as a ‘constructive blueprint for the future of science and mathematics in schools over the coming years.’  The Shorts also summarise the government’s recently-announced measures to secure a supply of scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians for the country, and the dissatisfaction they have caused amongst some bodies representing mathematics.

The theme of science and development runs through several of the pieces in this issue. The spirited SPATalk discusses whether environmentalism is good for the developing world. Tony Juniper argues it is crucial; Viv Regan is adamant that it reduces the developing world to a zoo.  An Exchange examines what needs to happen if science and technology are to work in developing countries. Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones advocate that citizens should participate widely in setting science policy, while John Mugabe and Suman Sahai stress that the political culture needs to legitimise such participation. (It’s interesting to note that Alice Taylor-Gee and Nigel Eady find that, even when citizens do participate in a political culture which is ostensibly open to it, they still have to overcome the hurdle of interesting policy makers in the results of their discussions.)  Completing the development strand,
Toby Aykroyd and his colleagues call for family planning to mitigate the poverty that population growth will intensify in the already poorest countries.

We also mark two symbolic spans of time. Next year, 2007, is the 200th anniversary of the end of the Atlantic slave trade. Linda Strausbaugh describes a unique project in Connecticut which is celebrating the anniversary by trying to trace the geographical and ethnic origins of Venture Smith, one of the slaves brought to America from Africa in the eighteenth century. And Martin Rees considers how the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists might change the hands of its virtual clock, whose distance from midnight indicates how precarious the Bulletin judges the world situation to be. He concludes that, whatever the imminent adjustment of the clock, scientists should engage with the political process to confront the threats of nuclear proliferation, as well as the unprecedented impacts of humankind collectively on the biosphere, climate and oceans.

The loss of anonymity for sperm donors in the UK has excited public discussion. The Australian state of Victoria already makes more information available to donors, children and their parents than is causing concern here. Louise Johnson describes the Victorian situation and its consequences.

Wendy Barnaby, Editor

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