Last Monday the Obama administration announced a new, largely privately funded, initiative which aims to “improve the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” The administration is calling the campaign “Educate to Innovate.” You can check out the White House blog post here and the New York Times article here. The campaign is being supported by several media and technology companies as well as scientific societies across the nation. The administration kicked-off the campaign by announcing five public-private partnerships as its first steps:

1. Time-Warner Cable, Discovery Communications, Sesame Street, and other partners will get the message to kids and students about the wonder of invention and discovery.
2. National Lab Day will help build communities of support around teachers across the country, culminating in a day of civic participation.
3. National STEM design competitions will develop game options to engage kids in scientific inquiry and challenging designs.
4. Five leading business and thought leaders (Sally Ride, Craig Barrett, Ursula Burns, Glen Britt, and Antonio Perez) will head an effort to increase private and philanthropic involvement in support of STEM teaching and learning.

While this announcement may not be earth-shattering, it represents a significant shift in the way science and math will be treated on the national stage. It is my opinion that President Bush’s obvious disdain for science* (and intellectuals in general) had a significantly negative impact on the way the general public viewed scientists and their work. And I believe that having a President who celebrates scientists can have a similar positive effect. Here are a couple of good Obama quotes from the NY Times article:

“If you win the N.C.A.A. championship, you come to the White House,” he said. “Well, if you’re a young person and you’ve produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too.”

“Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House, we’re going to lead by example. We’re going to show young people how cool science can be.”

There are, however, a couple of problems I can see with the President’s plan to celebrate scientists as we do athletes.  First science is inherently messy.  Unlike athletic competition, the arena of ideas often does not produce clear cut winners. In science, ideas generally undergo years of scrutiny and revision before they are adopted. Unless we engage in some type of Monty Python style competition between scientists (see video below) it will be difficult to determine who the winners are, at least in the short term.

Second, anytime the President speaks about a topic he brings a lot of political baggage with him. It would be difficult for the President to host any particular scientist without sparking a firestorm of debate about the scientists character or the validity of her work. His celebration of science could and would be construed as an endorsement of a specific person and her ideas.

I think the most consequential portion of the administrations campaign is bringing real-live scientists to kids in their classrooms and homes. This type of interaction with scientists and their work could make celebrities of our nations scientists, and encourage kids to explore these fields in ways their teachers and parents may never have been able to.

I would like to see local school districts and the University develop a partnership to bring real people working in science (both social and hard) and math into the classroom. Seeing these people and hearing about the work they do could be truly inspiring. Having a research university so close is a tremendous resource, and it’s time we started making better use of it.

*If you need some evidence of President Bush’s mistreatment of science, take a look at some of the articles referenced in this Wikipedia entry.