Motivating girls to do science

[laura a hyatt]

Denise Lepley (dmlepley at netserv.unmc.edu) wrote:
: I agree with all the replies to this post thus far in that teachers and 
: mentors play a large part in motivating girls and young women to choose 
: science as their career.  However, the question, in my opinion, is should 
: we be encouraging anybody male or female to enter the sciences now since 
: there are far too many PhDs and other technical support (M.S., techs) for 
: the number of available positions(in academia and industry)?  

Denise raises an important point : there are probably too many PhD's for 
our current science structure.  (a note : I'm a postdoc & from what I can 
tell, the job market is, in a word, GRIM). 

However, science education is not only about making more scientists.  
Science education is about equipping people to be active participants in 
society, who can understand technological issues when voting or spending 
or making choices.  It's about teaching people to appreciate the 
intricacy of the natural world (there's that beauty thing again), to 
respect and honor it, and to fully appreciate what's out there.  

In no way should we teach less science for fear that we'll have too many 
scientists.  

My $0.06, 

Laura

--

*******************************************************************
Laura Hyatt			... one can only estimate the
University of New Mexico	delight of arriving at truth,
Department of Biology		it be the discovery of a world
Albuquerque, NM 87131		or of a new property of numbers
				   - Mary Fairfax Somerville
*******************************************************************