Deconstructing STEM

Posted on January 14, 2010 by JimS

Retort by Harry Keller with a distilling retort on the left

In K-12 education these days, you’ll see frequent use of the acronym, STEM. This word stands for “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” This term is so widespread that no one even seems to question its use. Yet, the inclusion of these four subjects and the exclusion of any other is actually rather arbitrary and tends to mislead the general public about the nature of these subjects and how to teach them. Possibly, it’s the push from industry for more employees trained in these areas that has resulted in this emphasis.

Many people, even in education, do not have a full understanding of the essential differences between these four subjects. Science teachers may present them to students as being essentially the same. Funding agencies are proposing lots of money for STEM education. What are they proposing to fund? Even if you know all about STEM, please take a moment to read the analysis below and comment on anything that’s incorrect or incomplete.

To begin with, why exclude other subjects? For example, physical education uses science, technology, engineering, and mathematics extensively. If the use of one subject by another is reason enough for inclusion in a grouping, then physical education certainly should be added to form something like STEPEM. You can make a case for inclusion of some other subjects as well. Roping off four subjects from everything else makes no real sense for education.

However, it’s the lumping together of these four that makes the least sense. Why not HELASSAWL, grouping history, English language arts, social science, arts, and world languages? Yeah, it’s a mouthful compared to STEM, but logically, it makes as much sense. To understand why, take a look at each of the four STEM subjects.

Mathematics began centuries ago as a means to an end. It was used to regulate trade (arithmetic) and to deal with land (geometry). Then, Euclid came along and made logical, step-by-step proofs the bedrock of geometry. Mathematics hasn’t been the same since. Instead of being just a means to an end, mathematics now stands by itself in pure abstraction with its proof-based system of functioning.

Something that hasn’t been proved in mathematics is merely a conjecture. Mathematicians don’t have to relate their work to anything going on in science, technology, or engineering. They start with axioms and build a tower of theorems, corollaries, and lemmas. Doing mathematics requires a special way of thinking and extensive training.

In total contrast to mathematics, science is all about disproof. Science doesn’t stand apart from the real world in abstractions. Science involves inquiry, exploration, and discovery within the context of reality. It’s a voyage into the world of ideas that develop into explanations of the universe. Scientific theories mean nothing unless they can be compared with real data.

Scientists know that they can never prove their theories. That’s one reason that they’re called theories. New data tomorrow could overturn or at least modify today’s favorite theory. Examples abound. The geocentric view of the universe was overturned (probably more than once) by the heliocentric theory, which itself was modified when all stars were found to be rotating around a galactic center.

Mathematics plays an important role in every branch of science. The eponymous Lord Kelvin, immortalized as a temperature scale, said, “When you measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it.” Mathematics then allows processing of those numbers. Whether physicists are doing quantum mechanics or biologists are making statistical analyses of experimental results, mathematics permeates science. Nevertheless, mathematics is not science. Doing science requires a special, nonintuitive way of thinking and extensive training.

Engineering is all about making things. Engineers use the knowledge they have of how things work to create new physical entities. Much of this knowledge comes from other engineers who have tried numerous approaches and found which work best, and the data used are empirical. Other knowledge comes from the discoveries of scientists.

Engineers design, build, and test. They create skyscrapers and highways, toasters and microwave ovens, automobiles and racing bicycles. Scientists discover; engineers create. These two acts, discovery and creation, seem to be wired into our brains so that we consider them to be very pleasurable. There’s little other connection between these two disciplines, except that they seem to require each other. The discoveries of science help to fuel new engineering, and the new stuff that engineers create often provides devices that scientists use in their research such as telescopes, microscopes, spectrophotometers, and so on. Engineers require extensive training.

Technology is the stuff that mankind creates. It comes originally from engineers and inventors.

Technology is the stuff that mankind creates. It comes originally from engineers and inventors. Building a fire and crafting a spear were early examples of using technology. Today, it’s hard to take a step without involving technology, for example, the technology represented by your shoes. Because technologies are closely tied with scientific discoveries and with engineering designs and creations, people may readily confuse these.

A course on technology, by itself, will be a rare occurrence in elementary and secondary schools. Instead, you find technology woven into K-12 science courses along with engineering (e.g., robotics). Technology makes our lives easier, delivers better health, and allows us to explore places previously inaccessible. It also complicates our lives, pollutes our environment in numerous ways, and requires us to extract our planet’s resources to feed it.

Scientists discovered the ideas that made today’s flat panel televisions possible. Engineers turned these ideas along with engineering principles into televisions. The technology consists of the televisions, all of their pieces and parts, and the means to capture and send the images and sound to the individual televisions. In all of these activities, the scientists and engineers use lots of mathematics, but mathematicians play no role in creating televisions. A technologically literate person will know much about the technologies involved in delivering the television experience to living rooms but may not be familiar with the engineering principles involved in the design. This same person may not understand the nature of science either.

Interestingly, the California Institute of Technology provides bachelor’s degrees in mathematics, many branches of science, and several disciplines of engineering. However, there’s no degree in technology.

This conflation of four terms into STEM, an artificial thing that we’re supposed to be excited about teaching to K-12 students, makes little sense. Science and mathematics departments like it because it elevates them somewhat in the din of the discussion of how to improve education. Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground in many school districts. The districts receive some federal money for improving education. The various departments put in their proposals for a piece of this funding. ELA (English language arts) and mathematics ask for more, in total, than is available and receive all of the money. The science and history departments, not to mention music, arts, physical education, and others, get nothing.

The push for improved reading and mathematics scores trumps everything else and shortchanges the places where real learning takes place. But that’s material for another column.

[Note: The paragraphs on technology were revised by the author after initial publication. 1.15.10]

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Science Labs Don’t Have to Cost an Arm and a Leg

Posted on July 21, 2009 by JimS

Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

A recent article in District Adminstration magazine discusses the aging science labs in schools across our nation and the cost of upgrading them all.

The article points out that science standards have been raised recently while lab facilities have been left to deteriorate. It says that the costs of fixing the existing labs run between $150 and $200 per square foot, meaning that an adequate lab space for 24 students will cost around $250,000 to upgrade.

In these days of plunging school budgets, this allocation of funds is simply not possible. When you add in the cost of including science labs in new school construction and count all of the schools around the country that are likely to require upgrades, the cost of fancy science lab facilities can reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

However, there’s another answer. Scale back the full upgrade of the lab spaces so that only inexpensive, safe, and efficient hands-on labs remain. Safety equipment may be partially eliminated. Gas would no longer be required. Bunsen burners come from the 19th century and are really archaic today. Highly chemical resistant desktops could be replaced with less expensive alternatives.

Why can we make this adjustment? Because the primary advantages of hands-on labs are two-fold.

  1. They provide a kinesthetic learning experience, rounding out the other learning in science classes.
  2. They allow students to do experimental design and redesign, providing excellent experience in understanding the nature of science and in developing scientific reasoning skills.

Any other purpose cited for having hands-on labs either can be handled in alternate, safer, and less expensive ways or is not really necessary for high school students. The two purposes listed above are easily achieved in a facility that is no more complex or expensive than a kitchen. While such facilities are more expensive than ordinary classrooms, they fall far below the cost of a fully-equipped science lab.

M_Faraday_Lab

What do you then do to provide the science experiences that can’t be conducted in a kitchen? After all, simulations will not do. They misrepresent the nature of science and can even deliver erroneous results. The data all come from a programmer’s pencil, which cannot represent the real world and may have other flaws as well.

To many, simulations are the “new thing.” Actually, people have been using simulations for a very long time. Uranus and Neptune were discovered with the assistance of simulations. Note that these simulations were not being investigated but were a tool being used to investigate the solar system where the real data was being collected. The recent widespread availability of inexpensive computer time simply meant that simulations could be done with less expense and in less time.

Replacing science labs with simulations has become popular with some for a number of reasons, including cost, safety, and the “gee-whiz” factor of using a computer and seeing animations. None of these are valid excuses for cheating students of the opportunity to investigate the real world.

Instead, we must find newer ways to use the available technology to provide true inquiry science experiences.  Ideally, science labs should allow students to inquire, explore, and discover. Even when this goal is only partially realized, the labs should advance the goals of understanding the nature of science and of developing scientific reasoning skills. Any other use wastes valuable class time.

It’s time to harness our country’s ability to innovate and convert new ideas into great products. My personal efforts have centered on prerecorded real experiments. Others must also have ideas that can bring us better science education for less money. The future will require no less, and we can no longer afford these show-piece science labs that don’t deliver learning value in proportion to their cost.

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A Review of ‘The Opportunity Equation’

Posted on June 29, 2009 by JimS

Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

In 2009, a commission formed jointly by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute for Advanced Studies released a report titled “The Opportunity Equation.”  This report, in the strongest terms, called for improving mathematics and science education in the United States. Furthermore, it set out a series of recommendations on how to achieve this improvement.

In the executive summary, the report states:

The nation’s capacity to innovate for economic growth and the ability of American workers to thrive in the global economy depend on a broad foundation of math and science learning, as do our hopes for preserving a vibrant democracy and the promise of social mobility for young people that lie at the heart of the American dream.

The report immediately suggests that three very important societal goals depend critically on our ability to educate our young people successfully in mathematics and science. If we do not do so we may lose

  1. our competitiveness in a global economy,
  2. our democratic way of life, and
  3. hope for a better life for our children.

These are very serious statements. However, the question remains: If we concentrate much of our resources on the goal of improving mathematics and science education, will other educational goals suffer?

When the No Child Left Behind act was passed by Congress, it focused specifically on basic mathematics and English skills. With all of the mandatory testing required, curricula were revamped to spend more time on these subjects. Necessarily, less time was spent on social sciences, science, and the arts. In my opinion, that was a poor decision. It ignored, without any rationale, the importance of motivation for students being taught rudiments. It also diverted resources. For example, I visited one school whose computer labs were given entirely over to programs that drilled students on these basics and so were unavailable for science teachers or others with valid reason to use this resource.

Text image: The Opportunity Equation - Transforming Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy

In response to my earlier question about other educational goals suffering if we concentrate our resources on improving mathematics and science education, my answer is no. I believe that a balance can be achieved if we view schooling differently. The commission came to a similar conclusion:

For the United States, the “opportunity equation” means transforming American education so that our schools provide a high-quality mathematics and science education to every student. The Commission believes that change is necessary in classrooms, schools and school districts, and higher education. The world has shifted dramatically — and an equally dramatic shift is needed in educational expectations and the design of schooling.

The report goes on to suggest more specific changes. Here’s where many of my colleagues and those in the education community at large may dispute the commission:

Mobilize the nation for excellence and equity in mathematics and science education. Place mathematics and science at the center of education innovation, improvement, and accountability.

Yes, there’s a problem, but is it really that grave?  Note that the numbers of postdoctoral students in science and engineering include well over half with temporary visas, according to the National Science Foundation’s report on enrollments in 2007. Our own schools aren’t producing graduates interested in continuing their schooling to its logical conclusion in science and engineering. I was once a postdoctoral fellow and can appreciate the sacrifices these people must make to complete their education and be ready to take their places among the top ranks of science researchers in the world. They certainly will make more money elsewhere. For example, I was working in industry when I made the decision to move back to academia, and I had to take a 50% salary cut!

There are more statistics that carry with them all of the built-in problems of statistics. Mark Twain suggested the problem when he said that there were lies, damn lies, and statistics. Different people focus on different aspects of statistical reports. I have looked over some of these reports and see a growing problem. Anecdotally, a local paper publishes two columns regularly. One is called “Mind Games” and contains math and logic problems. The other is the astrology column. The former runs on alternate weeks. The latter runs every week. The former delivers useful mental calisthenics. The latter provides pablum to a deceived public. It’s truly sad to see superstition rank higher than reality.

Once you agree that our schools really do have to improve the math and science product they create, then you start looking for a solution. Can you really put math and science at the center of your school’s educational curriculum as the commission suggests?

I hold a slightly different view. Of course, I’m biased by being a scientist.

A Curriculum Based on Social Science and Science

I would like to see a curriculum that uses social science and science as its root. Both engage students in real-world ideas and challenges. Both are important to a functioning democracy and to a nation that can compete in today’s world. Both provide opportunities for learning the more “basic” skills of mathematics and communication. Both can engage students in artistic expression. Science certainly can engage students in learning mathematics, not for itself, but for the benefits it can bring to studying the world. By the way, I’m not suggesting that we eliminate multiplication tables. Arithmetic must be learned the hard way. But beyond the elements of arithmetic, the motivation for learning any more mathematics should come from real-world oriented goals.

I’m very inexpert in the social science area and so will say little. I imagine that great art can illuminate the social sciences very well. I know that communication skills are very important to social sciences as they are to science as well.

How would you rearrange a school like the one I envision?  You might extend the time spent on science and social science and have the teachers who previously taught mathematics and English in unique classes join the other teachers appropriately to support the learning of the other subjects. It would be a variant of team teaching.

Whatever the approach, we as a nation must agree to devote substantial resources to preserving those three crucial things that will allow us to continue to exist essentially as we have: competitiveness, democracy, and a better future for our children. The alternative may well be decay into just another country.

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India Steps Forward in Science Education

Posted on April 21, 2009 by JimS

Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

A recent press release in The Hindu newspaper, titled “Virtual lab for exploring science in top 10 institutes,” explained a new initiative by the government of India.

The release states, “Students pursuing higher studies at the country’s top technical institutes will now be able to do any experiment without going to a laboratory but through virtual labs.” It goes on to note that the government will be spending $40 million (Rs 2 billion) to complete this project within a year.

Coming on the heels of new virtual science lab commercial products from Romania, Turkey, and Scotland, this announcement should have our attention for two reasons.

It shows that India has made a huge commitment to gaining ground in science and engineering. They have decided to increase their ability to graduate qualified students in these fields from their premier education organization, the India Institutes of Technology.

The announcement also highlights our own problems. Rather than engaging in our own initiatives, we are spending our education tax dollars to import simulation software from foreign countries. We’re sending our stimulus dollars to the Middle East! As I have noted previously, the end of this process could be outsourcing not just of software services, but of entire courses including the teachers to foreign countries.

keller_21apr2009aFor a relatively paltry fraction of the money that India is spending, we could be promoting great science education technology initiatives right here at home. A few million dollars to make us more competitive in science education seems like nothing compared with trillions in spending and even with $40 million being spent on a single project by India.

I contacted our Department of Education about this topic and received a polite letter informing me that the Department does not do this sort of thing. I should contact the states, all 50 of them, one at a time! I have contacted many of the states too. They say that I should contact the individual districts, most of which say to contact the schools. Talk about buck passing!

I have a vested interest in all of this. My modest company produces a solution for online science labs that uses prerecorded real experiments. I do my best to avoid bias and like to think that my involvement just allows me to focus better on what’s going on. I see little support for innovation and entrepreneurship in education. As a scientist, I have great concern about this entire issue, which is why I entered the virtual lab business in the first place.

This journal is the perfect place to discuss these matters. It’s all about technology and change, after all.  While these two can be discussed separately, I prefer to discuss the use of technology to effect change in education. In fact, I see technology as our only hope for bringing about real and useful change, at least in science education.

The well-known challenges in science education today include:

  • increasing class sizes, sometimes over forty students
  • decreasing budgets made even worse by the recession
  • loss of lab time to high-stakes testing
  • complete removal of some labs due to new safety regulations
  • increasing costs for hazardous waste disposal
  • greater insurance costs for science labs where overcrowding causes more accidents
  • reluctance of overworked and underpaid teachers to change their methods
  • high teacher turnover due to the stresses of some current school environments
  • lack of new teachers trained in science, especially physical sciences

Great efforts have been made over the last quarter century to improve science education. The National Science Education Standards (NSES) were published to great fanfare, and have not fixed the problems. New professional development efforts also leave the science classrooms unimproved. Billions of dollars have been spent.

The Obama administration has proposed new curriculum standards, new science labs, and more professional development. These solutions require an abundance of two things we have little of: time and money. The sort of technology that involves physical materials, for example, smart boards, also requires lots of money and professional development to utilize them well.

Internet technology, on the other hand, requires only Internet access, which now is available nearly everywhere, and Internet-literate teachers. This evolving technology, if applied well, can overcome all of the above list of challenges except for the reluctance of many teachers to change methods to employ the new ideas. Given the potential benefits, we should certainly be investigating this approach in as many way as possible.

Why should our government talk about bold steps and yet be so timid compared with India?

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Science Education Retrospective

Posted on April 13, 2009 by JimS

Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

In 1929, Science Teaching was published. This book, by Frederick W. Westaway, went through a number of printings and was the book on teaching science of that era. Westaway wrote many books, including one on scientific method. His knowledge was encyclopedic, and he understood what the goals and objectives of science teaching should be. Reading his thoughts remains valuable to this day.

science_teaching2In science education, you can truly see that those who do not read about history are doomed to repeat it. So much of what you read today was known 80 or 100 or even 140 years ago. Science teachers still repeat the same old mistakes that Westaway wrote about. To be fair, he makes quite clear that beginning science teachers have a very difficult task and takes great pains to explain how they can learning their trade more rapidly.

I believe that to understand change in education, we should know about the past, especially the best of past method and process. In that spirit, I’m going to provide some of the wisdom of Westaway to those among you who have a serious interest in teaching science and in improving it. He did not perform extensive studies of science teaching, but he was an inspector of secondary schools and understood what separated good teaching from bad from long experience.

I’ll begin with his separation of the old science teaching from the new. He points out that prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, science education was anything but a core subject. He writes, “Science teachers were few, and those few were engaged in fighting down opposition all round.”  He credits Canon Wilson with planting the seeds of change, writing that in 1867 he “rang up the curtain on modern science teaching.”

Here is one of the quotes from Wilson’s book as reported by Westaway:

Science is the best teacher of accurate, acute, and exhaustive observation of what is; it encourages the habit of mind which will rest on nothing but what is true; truth is the ultimate and only object, and there is the ever-recurring appeal to facts as the test of truth.

Here, he is presaging Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World, in which Prof. Sagan speaks of scientists obtaining a “baloney detection kit” as a matter of course just by the nature of their studies and work. Wilson is making a strong case for the value of science education as a part of any liberal education.

Westaway’s quotes of Wilson continue:

It is important to distinguish between scientific information and training in science. Both of these are valuable, but the scientific habit of mind, which is the principal benefit resulting from scientific training, can better be attained by a thorough knowledge of the facts and principles of one science than by a general acquaintance with many.

We have been seeing an increasing call for more depth of science education and less breadth lately. Here, in a few words and 142 years ago, is this very point made and explained. Wilson distinguishes between the stuff of science and science itself. Science teachers generally place too much emphasis on words, laws, equations, and procedures and too little on what science truly is. Of course, it’s much easier to test for the former than the latter. The difference is crucial and insufficient comprehension of it has created many problems today in science education.

The next quote from Wilson is longer and brings science education forward to the modern era:

The lecture may be very clear and good; and this will be an attractive and not difficult method of teaching, and will meet most of the requirements. It fails, however, in one. The boy is helped over all the difficulties; he is never brought face to face with nature and her problems; what cost the world centuries of thought is told him in a minute; his attention, understanding, and memory are all exercised; but the one power which the study of physical science ought preeminently to exercise, the power of bringing the mind into contact with facts, of seizing their relations, of eliminating the irrelevant by experiment and comparison, of groping after ideas and testing them by their adequacy in a word, of exercising all the active faculties which are required for an investigation in any matter these may lie dormant in the class while the most learned lecturer experiments with facility and with clearness.

You can argue very accurately that the last 140 years in science education have been a continuing search for the means to fulfill this vision. (You’ll have to forgive the sexist nature of the references from 1867.)  The purpose of a science class is not the exercise of attention, understanding, and memory. The purpose must be to develop a mind that does not take evidence on face value, that can experiment and compare, that, in a phrase, can use scientific reasoning and will do so in daily life.

demon_haunted_worldWestaway’s final quote from Wilson speaks directly to the science teacher:

A master who is teaching a class quite unfamiliar with scientific method, ought to make his class teach themselves, by thinking out the subject of the lecture with them, taking up their suggestions and illustrations and criticizing them, hunting them down, and proving a suggestion barren or an illustration inept.

We should all ask what sort of teacher would be able readily to perform this service. What training would be required?  How many of our science teachers today are ready for teaching in this manner?

Given this perspective, what does change in science education mean?  Perhaps, it means going backward 140 years. Even Westaway writes, “All this reads as if written in 1928 instead of more than sixty years ago.”  So it might have been written today, except for some of the language details. Change must take place, but not from the old to the new. Rather it must take place from the ordinary to the extraordinary. The gauntlet was thrown down nearly a century and a half ago. We must not fear to pick it up.

How about technology in science education? How can someone in 1867 or 1929 even begin to imagine cell phones and smart boards? What should the purpose of technology be? One thing is clear. Technology must be the servant of good education rather than the reverse. Too often, we see educators attempting to fit a new technology with which they are enamored into their teaching methods without considering its real value.

Westaway understood very well that the teacher and not the method produces the best results. In using technology to produce positive change, we must seek to support the average teacher, the beginning teacher, the out-of-discipline teacher, and all who can improve their teaching results. We must provide the means to raise up the teachers and students and aspire to the best possible learning. Wilson set a standard that Westaway elaborates at length.

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Making a Case for Online Science Labs

Posted on November 10, 2008 by JimS

Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education
10 November 2008

In my last article, I spoke of states blocking progress in online science education. California and New York proscribe the use of virtual labs for their high school diplomas. Rather than complain about this situation, the online community must find ways to work with the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) and the New York State Board of Regents (Regents) to amend their rules.

There’s much at stake here — too much to waste our efforts attempting somehow to make simulations okay as labs. Realize that if these states modify their rules, then we open up a great set of opportunities for online education.

Instead of beginning by opposing UCOP and Regents, begin where they are and work with them. I read in the UCOP position a statement that no virtual labs that they had seen were good enough to substitute for hands-on labs. Take that as our starting point.

First, make contact with these groups. Then, show them the possibility of using online labs as a part of the instructional process. What’s the best way to make that demonstration?

Because the UCOP and Regents have not seen any virtual labs that they feel are suitable, and they have seen plenty of simulations (data, objects, and phenomena generated by equations and algorithms), do not begin by showing them what they’ve already rejected. Instead, show them something completely different.

keller10nov08Remember that the decision makers are taking their guidance from scientists. I’m a scientist (chemistry) and have some ideas about how these important advisors view science lab experience. Understand that the traditional education community is very protective of hands-on labs. Any solution must include these to some extent. The exact extent should be a subject of negotiation. The College Board, for example, mandates 34 hours of hands-on time for AP Chemistry.

Use America’s Lab Report for guidance and as a possible neutral virtual meeting ground. Showing adherence to all aspects of the report will, I believe, demonstrate the required possibility.

Having established communication and demonstrated the potential for online science to succeed, engage in a dialog regarding any deficiencies perceived by the UCOP and/or Regents in the various presented alternatives. Agree that one or more, if amended, can substitute for some fraction of the total hands-on requirement. Some approach may even succeed without modification.

Overcoming any such deficiencies and presenting our case again will complete the process and open the door for online science instruction throughout the United States.

Our initial presentation should include as many innovative approaches to virtual labs as we can muster and should not include simulations as lab substitutes for the reasons stated above.

I’m aware of three possibilities for presentation. None use simulations. All use the methods of science.

1. Large online scientific database investigation. Prof. Susan Singer, the lead author for America’s Lab Report, uses this approach in her own classes.

2. Remote, real-time robotic experimentation. Prof. Kemi Jona, one of the authors of the NACOL document about online science (together with John Adsit), is working with the MIT iLab people to supply these labs to students.

3. Prerecorded real experiments embedded in highly interactive software allowing students to collect their own personal data. The Smart Science® system is the only known example of this approach. (Disclaimer: I’m a creator of this system.) Apex Learning and Johns Hopkins University’s CTY are just two organizations that use these integrated instructional lab units.

I’d be happy to hear of other approaches that are not simulations and to work with anyone who’d like to see a change in the UCOP and Regents standards for lab experience. I’d especially like to talk to anyone who has contacts with the UCOP or Regents. The sooner we start in earnest, the sooner we’ll succeed.

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