Drawing Water from the Well of Sciences

Last fall, chemistry undergraduate chair Don Berry opened an e-mail from a young alumnus who was working on a television script. “One of our characters has the chemical formula for fudge brownies,” the former English major explained. To lend the authority of science to their show, the writers wanted to use the actual molecular structure, but their search for the formula had turned up nothing more scientific than a recipe. “So I thought I’d e-mail you, since you’re at my alma mater, and see if you could point me in the right direction.”

The right direction, Berry indicated, was an about-face to reconsider the ill-advised query.

In scientific parlance, a brownie is a “mixture” of many ingredients—from cocoa to nuts—each
of which is composed of several chemicals. A formula identifies the kinds and number of atoms that make up each molecule of a uniform substance—H20 for water; C2Cl4 for tetrachloroethylene, the dry-cleaning fluid Nobel laureate Ray Davis, Hon’90, used to capture solar neutrinos (page 8). “A formula implies there is a single type of ‘brownie molecule,’” Berry wrote back, “which there isn’t.”

Conceding that popular television “mangles” the science “most of the time,” Berry still was surprised a College graduate, even one who had not majored in chemistry, should fail to grasp so basic a concept. “In an ideal world there would be a level of science literacy that all educated people should achieve,” he says, “but I have no idea how to define it,” although, it seems, it should include a grasp of the difference between a recipe and a chemical formula.
unwashed masses

High-level worry among educators and scientists over the “crisis” of public ignorance about things scientific has been ongoing in America since Sputnik. In a 1996 report that reviewed undergraduate education in the sciences (Shaping the Future), the National Science Foundation stated, “Despite the observation that America’s basic research in science, mathematics, and engineering is world-class, its education is still not. America has produced a significant share of the world’s great scientists while most of its population is virtually illiterate in science.”

Almost three-quarters of SAS undergraduates major in something other than the natural sciences, but they must take some science as part of the general requirement for a liberal arts degree. Teaching science to non-science majors is an important priority for the College, but,
as several faculty point out, the professional rewards for the scientists who do the teaching are weighted more toward research, grant getting, teaching department majors and graduate students, and running a laboratory. With that kind of reward structure, declared one, teaching the “unwashed masses” is not necessarily in their best interests.

“ This isn’t a Penn problem,” College dean Rick Beeman comments, “it’s a national problem. And if it were an easy one, it would have been solved a long time ago.”

Biology professor Richard Schultz proposes one solution. If science were spinach, he contends—and many non-science majors think it is—then undergraduates just have to eat it. At least eight full servings in the course of an undergraduate education: two semesters of
biology, two of chemistry, two of physics, a semester of math, and one of statistics. It’s good for them, he insists, and there’s no need to make it more palatable to College students who, according to senior surveys, regularly turn up their noses at the science portion of the general requirement.

Department staples like Biology 101 and 102, says Schultz, prepare future leaders, policymakers, and citizens to make informed decisions in a world where science and technology touch their lives everyday—diet ads, cloning, acid rain and ozone depletion, reproductive technology, consumer and political marketing, genetic fingerprinting and genetically engineered food, global warming, and much more. He is not alone among science faculty in touting the advantages of “real” science courses and lab work for non-science majors. Students need to learn the basics of science, the argument goes, and the best way to do that is through the traditional introductory courses that majors must take.

“ I think it would be wonderful in principle,” says Berry of that rigorous ideal. “A good background [in the sciences and math] gives you a firm ability to deal with scientific issues you might come across in daily life or reading the Tuesday [Science Times section of the] New York Times—but I can’t give that to everyone who is at Penn.”

It’s not simply because Schultz’s solution would overload the liberal arts curriculum with science. Education for science majors is structured vertically, with each layer of knowledge stacked on top of a lower tier of prerequisite learning. The intro-level science courses that Schultz would hold out to non-majors are aimed primarily at laying the foundation of vocabulary and concepts needed to ascend the major’s many-storied superstructure of courses, which handle increasingly complex ideas and delve more deeply into disciplinary subfields. “Once you go beyond the introductory courses, you’re supposed to jump in with both feet,” remarks Larry Gladney, an associate physics professor.

Many introductory science sequences are also “service courses,” fulfilling requirements for pre-med curricula and other professional programs as well as providing foundational knowledge for other science disciplines to build upon. The classes are among the university’s largest, and the students are highly motivated and work hard. “If you try to add on teaching [these courses] to students who really aren’t interested in science but are coming in with completely different motivations for what they’re supposed to get out of the course—I suppose it’s too overloaded as it is to do that right.”

Gladney touches on one of the more vexing issues in teaching science to non-scientists. Many undergraduates want merely to fulfill the science sector of the general requirement as painlessly
as possible. Others are genuinely interested in learning more science but want something more engaging and relevant than the groundwork of details and jargon that majors need. Many are also insecure about their ability to handle the math—or else are bored by it.
“ We feel as though if you put physics in the title [of a course],” Gladney complains, “the number of people who will actually voluntarily sign up for it is approaching zero.”

“ My soundbite on this,” Beeman puts in, summarizing the annual senior survey, “is that we found maybe a third of our students enter Penn fearful and ignorant of science and leave Penn fearful and ignorant of science.”some solutions

“ I think the notion of minimalist literacy in modern science is a responsible notion,” affirms Bob Giegengack, chair of earth and environmental science. “I don’t know how you do it, and I don’t know how you get this into someone who is determined not to receive it.” Some SAS faculty think they know how, and a few have developed science courses aimed at teaching non-science majors.

Physics professor Gino Segre distinguishes two possible approaches: explore in some depth a particular field or range across a number of sciences, stringing them together along a single theme. His new spring-semester course on The Ups and Downs of Temperature embraces the latter. “It’s my personal attempt to . . . teach a course that has a little bit of lots of different kinds of science,” he says.

The main text for the course is his new book, A Matter of Degrees, a narrative for general readers that probes “what temperature reveals about the past and future of our species, planet, and universe.” The book—and the course—use temperature as the “connecting thread” that winds through some of the great scientific questions of the last century: the origins of life, DNA, the Big Bang, plate tectonics, the birth and death of stars, the microcosm of subatomic particles, and other big ideas that Segre wants to get across to undergraduates. Besides his book, students also read more technical scientific papers and excerpts from science textbooks. “It’s a little bit of a wild experiment,” he cautions. “I’m not sure how successful it’s going to be, but I thought it was worth trying.”

Biology professor Sally Zigmond chooses the discipline-in-depth pole of Segre’s dichotomy. For six years she has taught and refined a course that moves along the frontlines of scientific discovery: What Every Lawyer, Businessman, and Citizen Needs to Know about Molecular Biology. The course looks at genetics, gene expression, cancer, the immune and nervous systems, and viruses with forays into bioethics, evolution, and genetic engineering. The main resource for the class is a basic biology text, but Zigmond mixes
in plenty of readings from what booksellers call popular science
literature as well as articles from Scientific American, Discover magazine, and other substantive sources of science reporting. “I try to get students interested in reading about science in ‘lay’ texts that
are well written and palatable to them,” she explains.
She also recognizes and takes advantage of students’ strong writing skills, assigning frequent papers—five short, two long—in which they must trace out the linkages holding together the evidence and conclusions in scientific studies. Almost all her students say they take the course to fulfill the science requirement, but Zigmond measures success by how excited they become over some of the ideas. “What I want is for them to come out with some kind of increased understanding of modern biology and how it impacts their life,” she remarks, “and enough of a foundation and interest that they will continue to read the New York Times science section” or other science news. Ingrid Waldron, another biology professor, believes all non-science majors should develop some perspective on how scientists see the world. Students need to “understand discussions of science enough to be competent citizens, competent healthcare consumers, etcetera,” she argues. “What I want is to find something they are interested in and use that as a hook to get them to learn some of the other things that I, as a professional scientist, want them to learn.”

Waldron reels in groups of students on a line baited with Biology of Human Reproduction and Sex Differences, a course cross-listed with women’s studies. It discusses anatomy, genetics, hormonal
control, infertility, contraception, sexual behavior, sexually transmitted diseases, and other health-related topics. Students are eager to learn basic concepts of molecular biology and rudimentary statistics, she finds, if it will help them understand better the issues that concern them personally. Waldron uses a mix of popular press articles and scientific papers to make students more adept at evaluating scientific information—how scientists put together experiments and what makes a persuasive study. The approach, she stresses, leaves out lots of the detail and complexity that science majors would be responsible for. “I want them to be aware that what they’re getting is a version that’s comprehensible to them, starting from where they’re starting.”

the E word

Ask science faculty to define a minimal level of science literacy, and you’ll commonly hear them invoke as a standard the ability to understand and critique the Tuesday Science Times section of the New York Times. Many seem to respect the caliber of writing and read it themselves to keep abreast of sciences outside their own specialties.

Gina Kolata, a science writer for the Times, wants readers to understand “the logic and the big point” that she’s writing about. “One of the things that you can get from reading the Science Times,” she says, making a point that faculty keep coming back to, “is an appreciation for how to reason. And I think that it carries through into every aspect of your life.”

Kolata talks like an educator but she thinks of herself more as an entertainer. She’s not trivializing her job but pointing up how science, like reading a good book, going to a museum, or any other form of intellectual stimulation, can be pleasurable, a kind of entertainment. Stripping away the jargon that obscures the science for the nonscientist, she tells stories about the experiments, the chain of evidence, the reasoning to results, and the scientists behind the latest strides forward. “If I can’t make you read it,” she asserts, “it doesn’t matter how important it is. If you stop after the first paragraph, it doesn’t matter how interesting it is.” That’s why she uses the “dinner table test” to see if her themes and writing strategies can draw family and guests into more than polite conversation. It’s Zigmond’s excitement measure of a successful course.

For some of the science faculty, their first, memorable encounter with their discipline felt like a kind of entertainment. Biology professor Dan Janzen, who teaches Humans and Their Environment for non-
science majors, rhapsodizes about his experience taking Biology 101: “When I was a freshman, you know, it was the most—it was like going to the movies. It was the most marvelous thing that ever happened to me.”

It’s important, he says, not to “force feed” science but to convey to nonscientists a sense that the work of science is fun. “I tell Just So Stories to undergraduates about how the world works,” is how he describes his approach. “What I really am is entertainment. . . . The only way you’ll get any of that [scientific knowledge] into them is by making it interesting in the way a TV program is interesting or a movie is interesting or what your uncle’s telling you over Thanksgiving dinner is interesting.” He tries to get students to look at their surroundings more closely and to think about what they observe with stories about how cars, for instance, would be different if people were shaped like giraffes. The narratives he concocts can lead students to a sense that the everyday, just-so world is quite surprising—extraordinary even—when you understand it from the point of view of science. And he’s delighted when a student comes back to him with a story about the antics of a squirrel they’d been passing for years but had never noticed before.

Biology chair Andy Binns agrees that “there are good courses [in the curriculum] for our non-science majors, but there probably aren’t enough.” Still, adds chemistry
professor Marsha Lester, who’s putting together a new course on environmental chemistry, “it’s just an obligation that we have as scientists, and I think more of us should feel that sense of obligation.” Lester hopes to hook students who want to understand phenomena like acid rain and the growing ozone hole, and is aiming to give future leaders and decision makers a better understanding of environmental problems and the value of science in general.

Kolata insists that science is intrinsically fun and fascinating when it’s presented at a level nonscientists can appreciate and in a way that draws them in. “It’s intellectually interesting to talk about physics,” she says with excitement. “What’s the world made of? Where did the universe come from?” When she talks about writing science stories, she keeps throwing out short rhetorical questions—the kind that might enliven a dinner table conversation: Why is something true? How do you know that? What’s the evidence?

“ I’ve learned a lot,” she maintains. “I’ve learned a lot about how to think from being a science reporter. I guess that’s because I have the best tutors in the world.” n