National Educators, Policymakers, Business Leaders Address Future of U.S. Competitiveness

First-ever Physics Education Symposium to Feature New Proposals, Initiatives

January 9, 2007--The new Congress faces crucial decisions that may help to shape U.S. competitiveness and innovation for years to come. The science community has been at the forefront of inspiring new legislation for maintaining U.S. competitiveness in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), through the National Academies' 2005 report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, and the 2006 workforce benchmarks developed by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, an academic, industrial, and professional scientist association group.

Leaders in business, government, physics and science education at the K-12 and college levels will convene to discuss new strategies for maintaining, creating, and attracting the best STEM talent at the First Symposium of Physics Education, to be held on Wednesday, January 10, at the joint meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle. The symposium will be held from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in rooms 618, 619 and 620 at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

"The future of U.S. economic competitiveness hinges on strong science education in our country. Good physics education is the backbone of a first-class STEM workforce," said Toufiq Hakim, AAPT's Executive Director.

In the past six years, the U.S. high school enrollment in physics has exceeded a million students per year -- a historic high for the nation -- and the number of physics bachelor's degrees (5,000) has increased by 35 percent. For the sake of comparison, the total number of science and engineering undergraduate degrees has increased by 20 percent in the last ten years. Given these increases, the luminaries at the symposium will explore a series of questions:

• Why have the increases occurred? What is being done and should be done to sustain them?
• What is the expected impact of these increases on the STEM workforce?
• How do university physics departments contribute to the preparation of the STEM workforce and STEM literacy for all students? What should they be doing?
• What types of school-university-industry partnerships are needed to build on these increases?

Mary Jean Ryan, the chair of the Washington State Board of Education, will open the symposium with 15-minute remarks on the national value of science education and the status of related legislations. Ryan has wide experience in the business community, as she served in the Clinton Administration as the Associate Deputy Administrator for Economic Development for the U.S. Small Business Administration. In 1992, Seattle Mayor Norm Rice hired Ryan to create Seattle's Economic Development Office.

At the symposium, Ryan will describe Washington Governor Chris Gregoire's proposal to expand the state's Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) program into more locations around the state. The LASER program helps local school districts to implement hands-on, inquiry-based science instructional materials.

Stanford University's Arthur Bienenstock, a materials scientist by training, will present a talk called Focusing on Policy and Local Action: What the federal and state governments can do. Bienenstock served as the Associate Director of Science of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the late 1990s. He was also a member of the National Research Council's Committee on Condensed Matter and Materials Physics.

Van Eden, Academic Programs Director at Microsoft, is a physicist by training. He will present a talk called “Fueling Innovation: Knowledge creation and application”. At Microsoft, Eden participates in a company-wide effort to help to improve teaching and learning at all levels of the education system. He believes the success of Microsoft depends on having a strong flow of students into STEM fields not just because Microsoft needs bright, talented people to work for it, but also because these people are needed by society as a whole, and the IT industry in particular. 

Michael Neuschatz, a statistician at the American Institute of Physics, will present new data from an upcoming report on high-school and college physics enrollments. The data show enrollment in high school physics classes is at record levels and is likely to continue increasing. He attributes this increase to the availability of more kinds of high school physics classes, the fact that colleges look for students who take challenging classes like physics and higher-achieving science students are attempting to distinguish themselves from other physics students by taking a second physics class.

Enrollment in physics classes at the University of Washington-Seattle has seen a recent boom in physics majors, mimicking national trends of increased college physics class enrollment. Neuschatz will suggest ideas to maintain this increase, including marketing physics classes to non-science majors and training more physics students to become high school physics teachers.

Moderating the symposium will be Jeanne Narum, director of Project Kaleidoscope, an informal national alliance working to build strong learning environments for undergraduate students in the STEM fields. Also scheduled to speak are Kenneth Krane, physics professor at Oregon State University, and Arthur Bienenstock, materials science, engineering and applied physics professor at Stanford.

Dissemination of the symposium will be web-streamed and its proceedings published online at www.aapt.org. The goal is to inspire local actions and partnerships among physics programs and industry. AAPT will work with other societies to lead such developments.

Contact:

Turner Brinton
American Institute of Physics
Tel: 443-386-1042 (cell)
tbrinton@aip.org