Final Paper
How Popular Culture Impacts Transescents’ Perception and Understanding of Science
Geary Don Crofford[1]
Thursday December 13, 2007
HSCI 5533 History of Modern Science
Dr. Katherine Pandora[2]
Introduction
Ask American elementary and secondary school students to draw a scientist and most will provide a rendering of a stereotypical Hollywood version of a “mad scientist”. Their representation is usually male, with unkempt hair, glasses or goggles, a lab coat, positioned in a laboratory, and often performing some type of dangerous or radical experiment. A 1983 study[3] of 4807 students reported these results, and this and other studies also indicated the popular media may have a great degree of influence on youngsters’ perceptions of science and the scientific community and how they relate to them personally. Why is this so, and what implications does it have for the public’s understanding of science and scientists, and the general population’s scientific literacy? Where did these stereotypes originate, and how can a science educator combat these perceptions, or conversely, employ them in their instructional strategies?
A more recent study[4] found that Hollywood movies of the 20th century often present and reinforce many, if not all, of the traits of the “mad scientist”. 82% of the scientists portrayed in the films covered in this study were male, and most were white and American, as well. The majority of scientists were portrayed as studying the life sciences, as somewhat socially inept, and many times performing their work secreted away in a remote location, often to the detriment of society in some way. This study was a quantitative analysis of 222 films of all genres, covering eight decades of moviemaking. Another study[5] specifically looked at the images of scientists as represented in six Hollywood comedy films from 1961 to 1965. This study found scientists depicted as either objects of mockery or fear, with far more intellect than practical intelligence. The recognition and esteem of the scientists in these movies was mitigated by either buffoonish behavior or the threat his (all scientists portrayed were male) research presented to humanity.
The literature indicates popular culture has a profound impact on our perception of science, and the National Science Foundation has publicly expressed concern about the distortion and dilution of the public’s knowledge of science by the fictional media. Conversely, television programs such as The Magic School Bus are applauded for exposing children to meaningful scientific concepts that are effectively and accurately presented. What implications does this have for the science educator, positive or negative, and how should a teacher strive to take advantage of beneficial popular culture, or defeat the Hollywood stereotypes?
Students in the middle years of their education, meaning sixth through ninth grade, are also referred to as transescents. This name refers not just to their schooling, but also their physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. They are literally “in-between” childhood and adulthood, and the science teachers at these grade levels can have a particularly profound effect on their students’ understanding of science, and help develop and reinforce a positive attitude toward science. These middle years are especially crucial because just as the students are spending less time with their families, they are also exposed to many significant external influences, including their peers and all types of popular culture. Immersing these students in the proper combinations and amounts of accurate and beneficial media sources, both in and outside the classroom, may be one potential answer to address this dilemma, along with exposure to working scientists who may serve as positive role models, as well as the utilization of appropriate technology.
The Importance of a Scientifically Literate Society
As our society becomes more technologically oriented it becomes increasingly important to develop and maintain a scientifically literate population that is comfortable with most aspects of science and technology, as well as individuals that are skilled in specific areas of science and mathematics to provide a talent pool to help the United States keep its competitive edge in this domain. Voters need to be able to make informed decisions about candidates and their positions on science and technology related issues. Citizens also need to have at least a basic understanding of the health, environmental, and medical issues they may face throughout their lives. Inquiry-based, constructivist, and process-oriented science presented by positive role models, the development of critical thinking skills coupled with a solid base in science knowledge, and adherence to both process and content science education standards such as the National Science Education Standards (NSES) and in Oklahoma, the Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) may all help ensure the quality of science and mathematics education for all students, and especially transescents.
The “deficit model” attempts to explain the gap between scientists and the general public in terms of the lack of scientific knowledge on the part of the public. This model holds that scientists attempt in vain to pass down their knowledge to a public that is either apathetic, cannot comprehend the knowledge, or both. Whether or not this true, education holds the key to narrow this deficit, or prevent one from developing in the future. I feel part of the issue is simple human nature to ridicule or reject that which we do not understand. Not everyone can be a molecular biologist or nuclear engineer, but the public, beginning with transescence or even before, can be made both knowledgeable and comfortable enough with science to avoid rejecting it out of hand. Facilitating acceptance of and even enthusiasm for science is one of the science educator’s prime objectives, in my opinion. The mass media is going to continue to become a bigger part of all of our lives, and educators need to accept this and find ways to use it to their advantage, as well as overcome the negative aspects of popular culture as it relates to science and science education.
Minorities and Women and the Sciences
There also looms the dilemma of the underrepresentation of women and minorities in the sciences, what if any role the popular media play in this, and how science teachers may address this deficiency. A recent study[6] demonstrated from a review of over 60 feature films that the portrayal of women scientists can be grouped into six categories, none of which promoted a realistic or desirable role model for impressionable transescent females. These categories were described as ranging from the “old maid” to the “loner”. Despite this, The New York Times reported recently that for the first time, the top two winners of the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology were female students, and also for the first time there were more female than male finalists. The erroneous idea that women are not as capable as men in math and science was even espoused by a former president of Harvard, demonstrating just how deeply ingrained this notion is in our culture.
The idea of “social precognition” holds that the media mirror our perceptions of ourselves, including our role in and understanding of science. Is it possible that Hollywood is actually discouraging women and minorities from engaging in science careers? As a member of the Cherokee Nation, and having taught in both a rural NE Oklahoma school in which the population was 86% indigenous and a US-Mexico border school that was 75% Hispanic, I have a personal stake and experience in addressing and helping to remediate this underrepresentation of minorities. In fact, immigration of Spanish-speaking minorities, and how they will be served by our educational system will be one of the most significant issues facing our country this century. I know from my own experience that many students do not receive their first significant science instruction until their middle years. Many of these students do not even finish high school, let alone pursue higher education, and especially not in math or science. Multi-media and technology more specifically geared to assist these students may help address this unfortunate cycle of lack of education and poverty in many segments of our society. Exposure to appealing, qualified female and minority scientists in real-world research settings may also be a factor in overcoming these students’ apathy or even antagonism toward science.
Can Television Be Used to Promote a Positive Image of Science?
Television viewing has a tremendous impact on children’s ideas and knowledge of the world, including science. From Beakman’s World to Mr. Wizard to Bill Nye: the Science Guy to Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter, television has specifically taken aim at addressing science concepts and issues, with mixed results. Some shows are accurate and engaging in their portrayal of science, while others lean more toward the dramatic, distorted perspective, apparently for sheer entertainment value. In biology, evolution is always a pre-eminent topic, and one study has looked specifically at television wildlife programming’s attempts to explain evolution.[7] This study found that “blue-chip” programming with higher production values often was less effective than “presenter-led” programming of lesser production values in properly addressing issues such as creationism, evolution, and global warming. Much of my own early exposure to science, outside of my personal reading for pleasure, was watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom as a child, and I partially attribute my own personal interest in biology and wildlife to this series.
Music and sound is another facet of programming that may be useful, and was used to great effect in the television series Bill Nye: The Science Guy. I personally have used episodes of this series with tremendous results, particularly as reviews, expansions, or applications of a concept taught previously. The students always seemed to have a better understanding of a science topic after viewing episodes of this show, and the production and entertainment value combined seamlessly to hold their attention. The correct science programming, employed in the proper context within an inquiry-based educational process that incorporates the nature of science, can be an effective tool for the teacher.
Can Movies Enhance Students’ Perception and Understanding of Science?
Using any category of popular media to teach science is controversial, potentially ineffective, and even damaging. However, if utilized properly, educators can effectively take advantage of the entertainment value of Hollywood films to spark both interest in and understanding of science, according to a paper by Christopher Rose.[8] This scientist has actually developed a course he calls “Biology in the Movies” which incorporates biology-based films including GATTACA, The Boys from Brazil, and The Fly. He successfully uses the movies as starting points to pique the students’ interest in culturally pertinent topics such as cloning and transgenic manipulations. It is also interesting to analyze how biology has been portrayed in Hollywood movies over the decades of the 20th century, and how those portrayals have reflected advances in the discipline itself, particularly in the case of the three celluloid versions of The Island of Dr. Moreau.[9] One may easily trace advances in biology through these movies, ranging from 1933 to 1996, in the form of how the films’ “manimals” are created. The progression is from vivisection and blood transfusions to hormonal manipulations to direct genetic modification through recombinant DNA technology, as well as microchip implantation. Scientists may also facilitate the plausibility and purposeful portrayal of science in film and television by acting as consultants directly on the sets during production, even though according to one study this does not necessarily mean that corresponding scientific “accuracy” promotes the public’s understanding of science.[10] It also seems that the more fiction one is exposed to, the lower their regard for science in general. The impact of visual images on everyone, but youngsters in particular, cannot be overestimated.[11]Fictional Hollywood films are the most common venue through which the public is exposed to images of science, and their importance cannot be understated.
Is the Internet the Key to Promoting Science Literacy Now and in the Future?
Despite movies’ historical importance as a common venue for exposure to science concepts and practitioners, the Internet is rapidly becoming the most pervasive electronic medium for addressing students’ misconceptions, lack of interest in, and general attitudes toward science, according to two recent studies.[12] These reports analyzed the content of state-of-the-art science Web sites and popular non-science teen Web sites, and then used this information along with insights from teen focus groups to ascertain how best to construct science Web sites to attract teens. The results indicated that transescents seek entertainment, and not education, from the Web, and that teachers are the critical gatekeepers for educational Internet use. The study concluded that science Web sites can be fun and still teach science effectively, and that partnerships between schools and entities such as NASA could play an important role in developing the Web as an educational tool.
At the University of Oklahoma, the K-20 Center is currently involved in developing video games as a form of “informal learning” in science. There are numerous video games on the market now that incorporate aspects of science ranging from molecular biology to physics, and the potential of this avenue of learning is virtually limitless. Museums, planetariums, exhibits, television programming, and film may all play a role in addressing scientific illiteracy and malaise, both independently and in joint ventures, including Internet sites and gaming. Of all of these intersections of the public and science, the Internet may be the one that ultimately has the greatest impact, both in and out of the classroom. The Internet, for instance, allows teachers and students to engage directly in authentic research being carried out by practicing scientists, as in the case of “Pintail Partners”.[13]The Sam Noble Museum Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma is at the forefront of giving science teachers the opportunity to learn to use and incorporate technology into their instruction through professional development activities it develops and sponsors. The museum’s education department also emphasizes giving teachers and students opportunities to engage in authentic research experiences with practicing scientists. My own participation in this type of professional development directly led to my pursuit of a terminal degree in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum with an emphasis in Science Education here at the University of Oklahoma, and to engage in research that seeks to demonstrate a link between science teacher self-efficacy, student achievement, and these types of professional development and student programs.
My personal teaching philosophies were profoundly changed by the summer program I participated in two years ago, and I feel I can compound that impact by training teachers of science who may then pass what they have learned on to their students, and to their colleagues. Interacting with actual scientists, both in person and through the Web, often negates the negative stereotypes children have of scientists, and they come away possibly wishing to emulate the role models they met and learned from. In fact, I feel strongly that such programs are possibly the single most effective way to defeat the cartoonish or off-putting images of science and scientists that children may have been inculcated with by film, television, and other aspects of popular culture. Practicing scientists have a responsibility to work with science educators to help facilitate these positive interactions with students, for the benefit of science as a discipline and society in general.
Using the History of Science to Defeat Science Stereotypes
How may the history, sociology, and philosophy of science be utilized in this endeavor? Doing away with “cook book” science, and reducing lecturing and use of the text books may in and of itself make science more interesting to the transescent. Incorporating more history, philosophy, and sociology of science and developing and implementing more cross-curricular lessons with other subjects including mathematics, language, and social studies may also help students understand how science plays a role in almost all aspects of their lives. The difficulty often lies within the science instruction itself, as science teachers are often guilty of perpetuating their own stereotypes of science.[14] Despite this, others have argued that history of science has no place in the classroom. [15] It has also been stated that misrepresenting the history of science can be as damaging as not representing it at all.[16] Humanizing science may have benefits for the students as well.[17] These ideas specifically address the Hollywood stereotype of the scientist as a social misfit locked away in a remote laboratory carrying out arcane and unauthorized experiments that may jeopardize mankind’s future. The positive and varied aspects of science, and science (or science and mathematics education) as a career, could be emphasized to the transescent student and change how they see their “hypothetical future selves”. The adventurous nature of scientists such as Jane Goodall or Alfred Russel Wallace could be emphasized, as could the “hidden” heroes such as Rosalind Franklin, and great ethnic scientists such as George Washington Carver.
Another consideration is our country’s rapidly increasing Hispanic population and the absence of much scholarship concerning the history of science in Central and South America. Francisco Hernandez produced a crucial natural history of the New World that was originally published in the Aztec language. Some prominent Mexican scientists include Carlos Frenk in cosmology, Nobel Prize winner Mario Molina, the discoverer of vanadium Andres Manuel Del Rio, and the inventor of the first oral contraceptive, Luis Miramontes. Interestingly, given the nature of this paper, it was Guillermo Gonzalez Camerena, a Mexican, who devised the mechanism behind the first color television. There are historically more than enough great Latin scientists and mathematicians to present to Hispanic students as role models to emulate.
Athletics, Television, and Science: A Combination with Educational Potential?
The National Football League’s annual Super Bowl is traditionally one of television’s top attractions, and not just in the United States but throughout the world. The “March Madness” of the NCAA basketball tournament captivates our nation’s attention for several weeks every spring. We are all familiar with the University of Oklahoma football team and its significance in our local culture. Is it possible to capitalize on the popularity of these activities and appropriate them to the educational domain to demonstrate to students the inherent nature of science in this, and virtually all aspects of our lives? The intersections and “mixed border zones” between science and sports range from the physics and mathematics of moving people or objects to the training, physiological, and medical aspects of the athletes’ bodies. Many young people participate in competitive athletic events; enjoy watching televised sports, or both. The cultural and sociological aspects of this “ritualized warfare” are deeply ingrained in all of us, and if a science teacher can effectively link science to this natural competitive drive wonders might be achieved in terms of making science and mathematics relevant and interesting to transescents.
I have used sport and athletic concepts effectively in my own science and mathematics lesson plans over the years, including teaching positive and negative numbers in relation to the yard markers on a football field. I have also taught successful sport-related lessons on batting averages, winning percentages, velocity, force, and momentum, among other topics. I have seen many students of all ages complete excellent, even award winning, science fair and symposium research projects rooted in some aspect of athletic competition, as these topics seemed to motivate them when others could or would not. There are even examples of sport and science productively combining on television, including Sport Science, which is a popular show currently airing on the Fox networks, which incorporates scientific explanations and analysis of sporting phenomena with great effect. Connecting science concepts to prior knowledge and innate topics of interest for the students makes their perception of the subject more positive, and deepens their understanding.
Conclusion
I recently read an interview with Al Gore in Rolling Stone magazine, and I could not help but be struck by how some of his points concerning the environment, and our politics and society in general, paralleled and illuminated some of the themes of my paper. Mr. Gore referenced Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and another, earlier book by Joseph Schumpeter. The books’ commonality was the idea of a “change in consciousness”, or “paradigm shift” in their respective realms of science and business. Mr. Gore believes these recognitions of new patterns to explain things that seem mysterious to an “old” way of thinking are necessary to address some of the problems our country is currently facing, and will face in the future. I believe science educators need to help bring about this type of fundamental change in the viewpoints of our students, possibly by incorporating some of the strategies I have explained here. Mr. Gore went on to express his belief in the importance of the Internet as a type of “free and universal library” that can serve many beneficial purposes, including those mentioned in this paper. He explains how the age of print lasted 500 years, and gave way to television for the last 60, and yet the Internet is poised to override that medium and be everything it is now, and more. As an aside, I do not believe Al Gore invented the Internet, and he did not make that claim in this particular article!
The issue of the image of science and the scientific community, and in particular its perception by middle year students and their desire to enter science-based careers, or at least be scientifically literate, is a complex and challenging one. Funding for technology to address the issues raised in this paper is available through a wide variety of granting entities. I advocate giving teachers the grant-writing skills and freedom of opportunities to pursue their own classroom funds through these avenues, and develop and apply their own personal initiatives, and incorporate effective professional development programs they have been exposed to. Pre-service teachers in university-level teacher preparation programs need to be guided in utilizing popular culture, technology, and interaction with real scientists and mathematicians in the most effective manner possible in their future classrooms. Partnerships with entities such as NASA that have a vested interest in a scientifically literate population are potentially fruitful venues to achieve the goal of making science interesting and exciting and dispose of negative stereotypes. Inclusion of admirable scientific role models, meaningful history of science, accurate and relevant mass media presentations, and proper utilization of newer technologies such as the Internet and video games may all contribute to effecting a positive change in transescent students’ attitudes toward science and the scientific community. Classroom teachers are at the forefront of instituting these changes and bear great responsibility in the process, along with working scientists, parents, administrators, school boards, and university teacher-preparation programs.
[1] College of Education, University of Oklahoma, Norman OK 73072, USA.
[2] Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman OK 73072, USA.
[3] D. W. Chambers (1983). Stereotypic images of the scientist: the draw-a-scientist test. Science Education, 67, 255-65.
[4] Weingart, P., Muhl, C., & Pansegrau, P. (2003). Of power maniacs and unethical geniuses: science and scientists in fiction film. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 279-287.
[5] Terzian, S. G., & Grunzke, A. L. (2007). Scrambled eggheads: ambivalent representations of scientists in six Hollywood film comedies from 1961 to 1965. Public Understanding of Science, 16, 407-419.
[6] Flicker, E. (2003). Between brains and breasts-women scientists in fiction film: on the marginalization and sexualization of scientific competence. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 307-318.
[7] Dingwall, R., & Aldridge, M. (2006). Television wildlife programming as a source of popular scientific information: a case study of evolution. Public Understanding of Science, 15, 131-152.
[8] Rose, C. (2003). How to teach biology using the movie science of cloning people, resurrecting the dead, and combining flies and humans. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 289-296.
[9] Jorg, D. (2003). The good, the bad, and the ugly: Dr. Moreau goes to Hollywood. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 297-305.
[10]Kirby, D. A. (2003). Scientists on the set: science consultants and the communication of science in visual fiction. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 261-278.
[11] Figuring It Out: Science, Gender, and Visual Culture. Ed. Ann B. Shteir and Bernard Lightman. (Hanover and London, Dartmouth College Press, 2006).
[12] Weingold, M. F., & Treise, D. (2004). Attracting teen surfers to science web sites. Public Understanding of Science, 13, 229-248.
[13] Thomas J. (2007). Ducks and STEM education for elementary classroom teachers: case study research leading to a new professional development model. Draft not yet published; contact Julie Thomas, Oklahoma State University, College of Education, Stillwater OK 74078.
[14] Henry H. Bauer, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method, (Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1994).
[15] Douglas Allchin, "Why Respect for History-and Historical Error-Matters.", Science & Education 15 (2006): 91-111
[16] Anton Lawson, "What Does Galileo's Discovery of Jupiter's Moons Tell Us About the Process of Scientific Discovery?" Science & Education 11 (2002): 1-24.
[17] Hsingchi A. Wang and David D. Marsh, "Science Instruction with a Humanistic Twist: Teacher's Perception and Practice in Using the History of Science in Their Classrooms", Science & Education, 2002, 11:169-189.
