One Legacy of Paul F. Brandwein: Creating Scientists

ISBN-13: 9789048125272 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 300 str.

Deborah C. Fort

Opis

Once again, our nation has a powerful need for a revolution devoted to creating scientists. As we face the challenges of climate change, global competitiveness, biodiversity loss, energy needs, and dwindling food supplies, we ?nd ourselves in a period where both scienti?c literacy and the pool of next-generation scientists are dwindling. To solve these complex issues and maintain our own national security, we have to rebuild a national ethos based on sound science education for all, from which a new generation of scientists will emerge. The challenge is how to create this transformation. Those shaping national policy today, in 2009, need look no further than what worked a half-century ago. In1957, SputnikcircledandsentaclarioncallforAmericatobecometheworld s most technologically advanced nation. In 1958, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, which focused the national will and called for scholars and teachers to successfully educate our youth in science, math, and engineering. It was during this time period that Paul F. Brandwein emerged as a national science e- cation leader to lay the foundation for the changes needed in American education to create the future scientists essential to the nation s well-being."

Spis treści

Part I Remembering Paul F. Brandwein: Essays. Brandwein Alumni. Turning a Dream (Deftly, Subtly, and Effectively) into Reality, Andrew M. Sessler. How Dr. Paul Brandwein’s Mentorship and Guidance Affected My Scientific Interests and Career, Josephine Baron Raskind von Hippel. How to Win Converts and Influence Students, Richard Lewontin. Paul F. Brandwein’s Influence on My Life: The Essential Spark, James P. Friend. Paul Brandwein’s Influence on My Life, Barbara Wolff Searle. Brief Encounters, Lasting Effects. One Year, Richard Goodman. Research at a Tender Age, Tom Schatzki. Intellectually Exciting Years at Forest Hills High School, Lisa A. Steiner. Encouraging the Uncertain, Herbert L. Strauss. Saturdays at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Walter G. Rosen. Question Everything, Naomi Goldberg Rothstein. One Class Was Enough, Joanne Gallagher Corey. Science Education and Beyond: Colleagues. Paul F. Brandwein—A Personal Reflection, Sigmund Abeles. Paul Brandwein and the National Science Teachers Association, Marily DeWall. Dr. Paul F. Brandwein: Messages on Teaching and Learning for All Educators, E. Jean Gubbins. Some Reflections on Paul F. Brandwein’s Impact on Science Education, Robert W. Howe. Paul F. Brandwein and Conservation Education, Charles E. Roth. Environmental Education and Paul F. Brandwein’s Ekistics, Rudolph J. H. “Rudy” Schafer. Watershed Education for Sustainable Development, William B. Stapp. The Paul F-Brandwein Institute: Continuing a Legacy in Conservation Education, Keith A. Wheeler, John “Jack” Padalino, and Marily DeWall. Part II Paul F. Brandwein in His Own Words—Reprints 1955–1995. The Gifted Student as Future Scientist, Paul F. Brandwein. Science Talent: In an Ecology of Achievement, Paul F. Brandwein. Science Talent in the Young Expressed Within Ecologies of Achievement: Executive Summary, Paul F. Brandwein. Part III The Surveys Remembrances from More than a Half-Century Back: The Surveys, Deborah C.Fort. Part IV Appendixes Appendix A: The Survey. Appendix B: Bibliographies of the Works of Paul F. Brandwein, Deborah C. Fort and Suzanne Lieblich. Index.

Blurb

This book includes a brief biography of Paul Brandwein, but its most vital contribution are the essays about Paul F. Brandwein’s teaching that encouraged a number of the high school students he taught between 1944 and 1954 at Forest Hills High School in New York to become some of America’s most important scientists. In addition to the individual essays, there are cross-sectional study of the surveys returned by the 29 "Brandwein alumni," located by Richard Lewontin, James Friend, the late Walter Rosen, and Deborah Fort over the years since Paul Brandwein’s death in 1994. Creating Scientists might point the way to a replicable method that teachers (often, in addition, serving as mentors) could follow in encouraging their precollege students with a bent for science to choose to follow that inclination into postsecondary studies and eventually careers in science, mathematics, engineering, medical, and technical fields. "Once again, our nation has a powerful need for a revolution devoted to creating scientists. As we face the challenges of climate change, global competitiveness, biodiversity loss, energy needs, and dwindling food supplies, we find ourselves in a period where both scientific literacy and the pool of next-generation scientists are dwindling. To solve these complex issues and maintain our own national security, we have to rebuild a national ethos based on sound science education for all, from which a new generation of scientists will emerge. The challenge is how to create this transformation. Those shaping national policy today, in 2009, need look no further than what worked a half-century ago. ... Paul F. Brandwein spent his professional life as a scientist, educator, author, and publisher focused on the deep question of how we as a nation can create the scientist within. Through varied contributions from his former students, his colleagues, and his friends, One Legacy of Paul F. Brandwein: Creating Scientists explores how one man’s teachings and philosophies on science, education, and environmentalism both laid the groundwork for the first great science education revolution in our nation’s history and prepared the way for the one so necessary today. Many of the essays in this book offer firsthand reflections by former students and colleagues of Paul’s during the 1950s and beyond that record the impact of, and inspiration that resulted from, their encounters. Paul’s insights highlighted in this book illuminate a path forward for us today, as we work to create the second American science education revolution." Keith A. Wheeler, President, The Paul F-Brandwein Institute, Unionville, New York, USA