I have been bugging Andre to enter a writing contest for...forever. He did and won $100 for the following essay!
Yeah no doubt I am proud.
The Contest:
Write a paper expressing the best way to promote science to middle school and high school youth in USA. Clarity of thought, novelty and viability are the criteria. An abstract (50 words or less summary) is also required. Length of your paper must be more than 1200 words, and less than 3000 words. Author of winning paper receives US$100 by PayPal.
Abstract: The understanding of Science among youth is primary to changing how it is percieved among students, and it all begins with introducing the core elements of other subjects into science as well. -
I won the science fair, I remember the day I got my trophy like it was yesterday. Since then, in all the schools I've been to, it seems those great competitions among students for the best, more researched project have faded away. Simply, my third grade science fair was the very last one I ever even got the opportunity to compete in.
Let us break down just what makes science commonly perceived as an uninteresting (for the most part) subject. Firstly, it involves a lot of listening before you get to the doing part of science. Secondly, it's fallen into a state where so (and I say this lightly) many students are under the dark impression that only nerds even like science.
Everything about the interest in any subject lies in how it is perceived by the students who actually take the class. Regardless of the content in a course, if our American youth commits to an opinion for too long it can potentially be decades before those opinions fade. Luckily, we are blessed to live in a time where science is a topic that is discussed every day in our world, and is essential to the way we live our lives now and in the future. Science, frankly, has the potential to be one of the most interesting and exciting courses a student can choose to take!
Just look at how much is still to be discovered on this Earth, and let us also look at just how many amazing things American and worldwide youth has accomplished. Whether it be for our communities, or a foundation, or anything else – American students have proven that when a daunting task is set before them, so many have risen to meet the occasion. We are a very capable nation, and to direct the power of as many young adults as we have, imagine all that brainpower directed into projects that have scientific value.
A science project. The answers to all of the problems I have posed lies, and I deeply believe so, in the exhilarating competition that we can so easily find in just science fairs. Imagine a revamp of the structure, perhaps. One where entire schools compete against each other with whatever contribution to modern science they have to offer. We are a nation of people with limitless possibilities, and I believe that if we set people to the pure sport of science the outcome would be a tremendous opportunity, and from those opportunities would be born progression.
So now let us take an in-depth look as to why competition is the primary element to introducing science as a popular subject. What is probably the number one most popular talked about thing in high school? At least where I come from, it was most definitely sports. It can be proven time and time again that competition is an essential ingredient to making things, plainly, more interesting. I will not deny that science is in most cases, quite a far shot from football. Beakers and chemicals will never be held in the same part of your brain as a football. Nothing we as Americans should be ashamed of because the two are undoubtedly very different. However we can take elements from sports, being as enjoyed as they are, and implement them into the science curriculum for the better.
With that point, science fairs are a logical 'first thing' to making science more popular. It's adding a core element that American's will always undoubtedly enjoy – competition. I will never forget the thrill I had working as hard as I did on my project – even though I was so young at the time. Competitions strike so many things in students, and throughout my years as one myself I have noticed just how much winning can change things. The fires of inspiration, or the lust to win. Whether these 'fairs need to be organized in a way they will always be beneficial to all of the study or not, it is primary that the subject be more enjoyed because there are just so many things that are in dire need of research done on them.
As we head off into the depths of the future, progress behind the black curtain of the things we do know and the things we don't. It is too important for words that we never let American youth forget the beauties of science, and although most scientists will never progress into the same leagues of popularity as an actor or actress will, we must make students understand that we still need them. To move up as a nation we are truly relying on the young people in our country to take these interests, or the predictions for the future will only get more dire than they have already presented themselves as. If people do not soon start recognizing the revamps our educational system requires, If it falls to a point of disrepair where just too many students have the wrong impression about all these subjects, the world could easily be affected.
Yes, it does seem as if I am putting too much weight on what can be expected from students, but I do know that everything says America is already headed down a dark and hard road. We need these same students to grow up to be the people who will find the solutions because our entire planet relies so heavily on finding solutions soon. I honestly don't know whether we are dwindling in those people who are taking it on themselves to start finding answers, but I do know that where I'm from there is a true and all too real fallout in interest.
Regardless of whether we ever reach a point when we're having a noticeable drought in people devoted to glorious science or not, changes need to be made. Students need to be more aware of how important these subjects are to our world, they need to be more aware of what the future holds, and most of all they need to be aware just how much control over what happens to America they have in their hands. What it truly takes to change the view is just telling students how important they, and the subject is to our lives. In time the inspiration to achieve will come, and that opinion I will always hold.
In closure, my opinion I hope has been presented very clearly. I truly hope that this essay has had the ability to change even your emotional connection and understanding of the great art of sciences. No matter where we are as a nation, as a world, and as humans we cannot afford to let ourselves forget the importance of these matters. Every single youth in our United States of America has the potential within their minds, and hearts to make a difference to the world; all that is required of them is that they understand that potential. Understanding is everything, and that is truly one of the most plain rules of understanding sciences of any kind. When we fail to at least try to understand, we are only enabling our own ignorance – and that affect is tripled when we don't apply that to the next generation of understand-ers – our children and our students.
-Andre Washington.
