In the normal course of things Th’ Gaussling gives school chemistry talks or demonstrations a couple of times per year and until recently, I had been giving star talks at a local observatory more frequently.  The demographic is typically K-12, with most of the audience being grades 3-8.  From my grad student days through my time in the saddle as a prof, I was deeply committed to spreading the gospel of orbitals, electronegativity, and the periodic table. I was convinced that it was important for everyone to have an appreciation of the chemical sciences.  I was a purist who knew in his bones that if only more people were “scientific”, if greater numbers of citizens had a more mechanistic understanding of the great intermeshing world systems, the world would somehow be a better place. 

In regard to this ideology that everyone should know something about chemistry, I now fear that I am apostate.  I’m a former believer.  What has changed is a newer viewpoint based on some observations.  

Chemical knowledge is highly “vertical” in its structure.  Students take foundation coursework as a prerequisite for higher level classes.  Many of the deeper insights require a good bit of background, so we start at the conceptual trailhead and work our way up. But in our effort to reach out to the public, or in our effort to protect self esteem, we compress the vertical structure into a kind of conceptual pancake.  True learning, the kind that changes your approach to life, requires Struggle.

What I find in my public outreach talks on science- chemistry or astronomy- is the  expectation of entertainment. Some call it “Infotainment”.  I am all in favor of presentations that are compelling, entertaining, and informative.  But in our haste to avoid boredom, we may oversimplify or skip fascinating phenomena altogether. After all, we want people to walk out the door afterwards with the answers. We want Science to be accessable to everyone, but without all the study.

But I would argue that this is the wrong approach to science.  Yes, we want to answer questions.  But the trick is to pose good questions.  The best questions lead to the best answers.   People (or students) should walk out the door afterwards scratching their heads with more questions.  Science, properly introduced, should cause people to start their own journey of discovery. Ideally, we want to jump-start students to follow their curiosity and integrate concepts into their thinking, not just compile a larger collection of fun facts. 

But here is the rub. A lot of folks just aren’t very curious.  As they sit there in the audience, the presentation washes over them like some episode of Seinfeld.  I suspect that a lack of interest in science is often just part of a larger lack of interest in novelty.  It is the lack of willingness to struggle with difficult concepts.  But that is OK.  Not everyone has to be interested in science.

Am I against public outreach efforts in science?  Absolutely not.  But the expectation that everyone will respond positively to the wonders of science is faulty.  It is an unrealistic expectation on the 80 % [a guess] of other students who have no interest in it.   I’m anxious to help those who are interested.  It’s critical for students interested in science to find a mentor or access to opportunity.  But, please God, spare me from that bus load of 7th graders on a field trip. 

What we need more than flashier PowerPoint presentations or a more compelling software experience is lab experience.  Students need the opportunity to use their hands beyond mere tapping on keyboards- they need to fabricate or synthesize. You know, build stuff. 

It is getting more difficult for kids to go into the garage and build things or tear things apart.  Electronic devices across the board are increasingly artifacts of microelectronics.  It is ever harder to tear apart some kind of widget and figure out how it works.  When you manage to crack open the case what you find is some kind of circuit board festooned with cryptic resin-encased devices. 

The emphasis on information technology bypasses the fact that we still need to build things.  Kids need to develop their mechanical skills. And they do that by building things.