Political Quotes

“today is Earth Day. I chose to commemorate Earth Day by introducing the Academic Excellence and Environmental Sciences Act. My bill seeks to encourage academic rigor in scientific education by beginning at the lower grades through the study of the environmental sciences and the use of hands-on recycling. This, of course, is the year of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and I hope that my bill will be included in the act. I have two goals here. The first comes from what I understand to be the difficulty of imparting and explaining scientific ideas and concepts, some of them fairly abstract, to elementary schoolchildren. As a result of this difficulty, in the elementary grades, children are often relegated to ``play science.'' This ``play science'' not only does not prepare them for science; it turns them off of science. Secondly, I believe that hands-on recycling will help children learn at an early age habits that conserve our resources at the same time that it will help concretize their interest in science and their understanding of science. By the time many youngsters are exposed to science in high schools, large numbers of them have lost interest or are simply unready for the rigors that are necessary to become proficient. We are suffering from starting too late to interest children in science. We are suffering because of the reduced pool of scientists and scientific experts.…”