In today’s New York Times Natalie Angier has a nice story about increased interest in physics:
Many people wring their hands over the state of science education and point to the appalling performance of America’s students in international science and math competitions. Yet some of the direst noises about our nation’s scientific prospects may be premature. Far from rejecting challenging science courses, students seem to be embracing them.
This year, for example, the American Institute of Physics said that the percentage of high school students taking physics courses was at an all-time high, and that the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the subject had climbed by 31 percent since 2000. Moreover, there are a growing number of “magnet” or “gifted and talented” programs in secondary schools that emphasize science and math. While quality varies widely, and some observers worry that the tiny, competitive programs consume an outsized portion of a school’s budget, a visit to Ms. Cascio’s class and her students, who are not only gifted, talented and magnetic but hardworking, too, is almost enough to make you wish you were back in high school.
The piece is built around a profile of Ms. Cascio’s ninth-grade physical science class, which sounds like a first-rate inquiry-based physics class. She’s doing stuff with her kids that’s basically equivalent to what we do with our intro classes.
So, everything is rosy, right? Well, not so fast…
For one thing, I think it’s a mistake to assume that increased enrollments in high school physics classes indicate an increased interest in science in general. Or an increased interest in physics, for that matter.
I suspect that a large portion of the recent increases in physics enrollment can be attributed to the well-documents intensification of the college application process. Physics is an elective course for most states, so students don’t formally have to take it. But as college admissions has become more competetive– and, more importantly, parents and guidance counselors have become more crazy about the process– it’s become more and more important for students who want to get into good schools to demonstrate a willingness to take tough classes. Students who never would’ve ruined their senior year with a physics class ten years ago are taking physics now, because they think they need to in order to get into the best colleges.
And then there’s the usual demographic problem of the Times. Ms. Cascio’s class sounds fantastic, and if it was really representative of the state of physics education nationwide, I’d happily believe in a resurgance of interest in the physical sciences.
Unfortunately, Ms. Cascio’s fantastic physics class is being taught in a math and science magnet school, in Loudon County, Virginia. Which might almost be a representative sample of the people that the Times pitches their lifestyle articles at, but with a median income of close to $100,000, it can’t really be held up as an example of what’s going on in the nation at large.
It’s a nice profile piece, and the class really does sound terrific. If you’re teaching high school physics, or trying to get a young person interested in the physical sciences, you could do a lot worse than to copy what’s described in the article. I wouldn’t attempt to generalize too far from this description, though.