- #36
George Jones
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
- 7,643
- 1,600
Some might find the following to be quite surprising.
Art Hobson, in a letter published the July 2008 issue of The American Journal of Physics, writes:
"Fortunately, the U.S. system of higher education allows us a perfect opportunity to do this. Our system requires most college students to take a variety of general education courses in history, language, literature, the arts, and the sciences. All European nations, and most other nations, have no such general education requirements for college students. U.S. adults have scored far higher than European adults during two decades of tests of general scientific literacy by Jon D. Miller,2 Director of the International Center for Scientific Literacy at Michigan State University. Miller has shown that the U.S. required college science courses for nonscientists are almost certainly the reason for this unexpected result, and that these courses are surprisingly effective at instilling lifelong scientific literacy.3 As Miller puts it, “What we are seeing here is a result of the fact that Americans are required to take science courses at the university, while Europeans and Asians are not.
2 For an overview of Miller’s program of scientific literacy measurements and analysis, see J. Trefil, Why Science? Teacher’s College Press, New York, 2008, Chap. 6.
3 A. Hobson, “The surprising effectiveness of college scientific literacy courses,” submitted for publication to The Physics Teacher, preprint available at physics.uark.edu/hobson/ pubs/08.01.TPT.html."
Art Hobson, in a letter published the July 2008 issue of The American Journal of Physics, writes:
"Fortunately, the U.S. system of higher education allows us a perfect opportunity to do this. Our system requires most college students to take a variety of general education courses in history, language, literature, the arts, and the sciences. All European nations, and most other nations, have no such general education requirements for college students. U.S. adults have scored far higher than European adults during two decades of tests of general scientific literacy by Jon D. Miller,2 Director of the International Center for Scientific Literacy at Michigan State University. Miller has shown that the U.S. required college science courses for nonscientists are almost certainly the reason for this unexpected result, and that these courses are surprisingly effective at instilling lifelong scientific literacy.3 As Miller puts it, “What we are seeing here is a result of the fact that Americans are required to take science courses at the university, while Europeans and Asians are not.
2 For an overview of Miller’s program of scientific literacy measurements and analysis, see J. Trefil, Why Science? Teacher’s College Press, New York, 2008, Chap. 6.
3 A. Hobson, “The surprising effectiveness of college scientific literacy courses,” submitted for publication to The Physics Teacher, preprint available at physics.uark.edu/hobson/ pubs/08.01.TPT.html."