Economist Bill Goffe (2010) recently alerted PhysLrnR's to Janet
Raloff's (2010) "Science News" report "Science Literacy: U.S. College
Courses Really Count" at <http://tinyurl.com/ydayp9z>.
Raloff wrote [bracketed by lines "RRRRRR. . . . "]:
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Jon Miller <http://dsme.msu.edu/people/jomiller.htm> of Michigan
State University reported the numbers at the American Association for
the Advancement of Science annual meeting <http://www.aaas.org/>,
this afternoon, during a session on civic science literacy
assessments around the world.
The new U.S. rate, based on questionnaires administered in 2008, is
seven percentage points behind Sweden, the only European nation to
exceed the Americans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
America's improving science and tech literacy does not appear to
reflect better K-12 science education, Miller says, since scores on
tests assessing kids' science literacy has remained fairly stable -
and not that high. Indeed, he notes, U.S. high school students "are
below average and below most European countries" on virtually every
international achievement test administered throughout the past 30
years. . . . . . . . . one is tempted to ask how science literacy
among U.S. adults could have risen to become second only to the
Swedes'.
The likely answer, [Miller] contends, traces to the U.S.
undergraduate curriculum.
"The United States is the only country in the world, right now, that
requires all of its university students take a year of general
education," Miller says. "Which means they all have a year of
science, a year of social science, and a year of humanities." It's
something he contends European and other nations would do well to
match.
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REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Goffe, B. 2010."Science literacy: U.S. college courses really count,"
PhysLrnR post of 28 Feb 2010 16:02:44-0500 online at
<http://tinyurl.com/ydayp9z>. To access the archives of PhysLnR one
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Raloff, J. 2010. "Science Literacy: U.S. College Courses Really
Count," Science News 177(6): 13; online at
<http://tinyurl.com/y8mkvcf>.