Title:
Getting Students Excited About a Life in the
Biosciences
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
The American biotechnology industry recently did a
study of bioscience education across the country.
The biosciences are biology and other sciences that
deal with living organisms.
Paul Hanle is president of the Biotechnology
Institute, one of the groups that did the study. He
says international tests show that the United States
is performing twenty-fifth out of thirty developed
countries in science education.So the new findings
may be no surprise.
The study found that many schools are not doing
enough to get students interested in bioscience or
to prepare them to study it in college.
But the report said a number of the fifty states
performed much better than others. Eight were rated
as leaders: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont and
Wisconsin.
Paul Hanle says increasing the numbers of bioscience
graduates could help the economy grow. He says there
are many high-paying jobs in the biosciences. And
some lower-paying jobs require only two years of
college, or even a technical education program in
high school.
Now here is a way to get students excited -- or more
excited -- about science. Offer them fifty thousand
dollars in savings bonds and the ceremonial title of
"America's Top Young Scientist."
Ten children ages eight to fourteen were in New York
recently for the finals of this year's Discovery/3M
Young Scientist Challenge. Middle school students
from every state entered the competition, sending in
videotaped ideas. Officials said the five hundred
students who entered were judged as much on their
communication skills as for the scientific talent
they showed.
The ten finalists presented their inventions -- made
of common household products -- then competed in a
series of events. The last three finalists each had
fifty minutes to create a tall structure to hold an
egg even when shaken with earthquake force.
All three eggs fell or broke. But all the structures
remained standing -- thanks in large part to the
large amounts of duct tape used by the students.
In the end, Nico Seamons and Nikita Gaurev shared
second place. Marina Dimitrov won the top prize.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
You can find our reports with transcripts and
podcasts -- and share comments -- at
voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on
Twitter and YouTube.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
