{"id":863,"date":"2009-01-15T07:01:53","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T12:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=863"},"modified":"2009-02-28T14:19:04","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T19:19:04","slug":"how-many-of-you-are-chemistry-majors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=863","title":{"rendered":"How many of you are chemistry majors?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An article about new science labs at Stetson University brings up a relevant question: why aren’t students interested in physics and chemistry<\/a>?<\/p>\n

“How many of you are chemistry majors?”<\/p>\n

Thirty-five students remained still. No one raised a hand.<\/p>\n

Stetson University’s $8.5 million Sage Hall Science Center — an addition to the 1960s-era science building of the same name — started Wednesday not with the bang of an experiment gone wrong, but the whisper of indifference.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Though interest in biology and environmental science soars, fewer students are expressing an interest in the traditional physical sciences — including chemistry and physics.<\/p>\n

“We beat our heads all the time, trying to figure out what is it?” said W. Tandy Grubbs, professor of physical chemistry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m taking college classes at night with the eventual goal of becoming a life sciences teacher. I stayed away from physics as a career choice quite frankly because of the math. As for chemistry, I got a very ugly introduction to the subject in high school. My high school chemistry teacher was brilliant, but couldn’t teach to save his life. As a result, chemistry was just a confusing, scary mess. However, I’m taking a college chemistry class now and I’m doing OK with it. It’s frustrating at times, but once the basic concepts click, the challenges of solving chemistry problems becomes fun. In general, the same thing happens for me in math. I loathed math in high school. But in college, once I overcame some of the initial mental roadblocks of “this is too hard and scary”, it became a lot of fun to solve what are essentially number puzzles.<\/p>\n

I can see a potential answer to the problem of why kids stay away from the “hard” stuff both in myself and in my own two teenagers. Effort. It takes a commitment of effort to get this stuff. I didn’t want to put that effort in when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I found out that if I put the effort in, I’ll get something cool out: the satisfaction of figuring things out! Hey, I’m smart! Unfortunately, it looks like many of today’s kids (my own kids included) just don’t want to put that effort into the work.<\/p>\n

Anyone know the answer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article about new science labs at Stetson University brings up a relevant question: why aren’t students interested in physics and chemistry? “How many of you are chemistry majors?” Thirty-five students remained still. No one raised a hand. Stetson University’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-dV","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3431,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3431","url_meta":{"origin":863,"position":0},"title":"News Roundup 2\/9\/19: Sen. Baxley takes a pounding","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Several opinion pieces were published since my last news roundup just one week ago. Every one of them tears into state senator Dennis Baxley's bill that attacks so-called \"controversial theories\" in science classrooms. If you need a primer about this bill, check out our issues page:\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Controversial Theories\/Rigorous Standards\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bills 2019.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/eastman.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=97","url_meta":{"origin":863,"position":1},"title":"Letter to the editor about science FCAT","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is an interesting letter to the editor about the science FCAT: As a science graduate and education specialist teaching science in high school, I find myself along with other teachers arresting our science curriculum in anatomy and physiology, physics, zoology, environmental science and chemistry to help our students either\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1106,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1106","url_meta":{"origin":863,"position":2},"title":"2010 Legislative Session already gearing up","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gradebook blog notes that a bill filed in the House for the 2010 session focuses on math and science requirements for graduation. The part concerning science in HB61 states: Beginning with students entering grade 9 in the 2011-2012 school year, one of the three credits must be Biology I\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1106#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=254","url_meta":{"origin":863,"position":3},"title":"Math helps students in college science","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting study suggests that the most important thing in high school that could help students in college science courses is math. Specific science courses taken in hgh school helped in that same subject in college, but didn't translate over to other science subjects. For instance, high school biology helped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1057,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1057","url_meta":{"origin":863,"position":4},"title":"What the professors said","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Following up on yesterday's post about Florida science professors wanting end-of-course tests rather than the 11th grade FCAT, here is the white paper they wrote and here is the list of folks who signed it. Below is the text of their statement: --------------------------- Graduation Requirements and Assessment Policy for High\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1257,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1257","url_meta":{"origin":863,"position":5},"title":"Commentary: Florida Science education takes the wrong track.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a good commentary at the Tallahassee Democrat website: Florida Science education takes the wrong track. All students now would be taking biology, and many would end up taking only biology as a result of large failure rates (anticipated if you examine recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}