Megan Smith Quotes

Science is cool! But it's easy for that to get lost in textbooks sometimes.

… to develop a plan to promote better science education

But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

I had learned that science is a rewarding, active process of discovery, not the passive absorption of what others had discovered.

You don't need a science degree to understand about science. You just need to think about it.

I believe we owe our young an education that captures the exhilarating drama of science.

If you're an adult and you choose not to believe in science, fine, but please don't prevent your children from learning about it and letting them draw their own conclusions.

Whatever happens to science in schools, there's something peculiar going on if students don't see it as creative.

In this respect, the history of science, like the history of all civilization, has gone through cycles.

You can't train kids in a world where adults have no concept of what science literacy is. The adults are gonna squash the creativity that would manifest itself, because they're clueless about what it and why it matters. But science can always benefit from the more brains there are that are thinking about it - but that's true for any field.

Science is you! It's your head, it's your dog, it's your iPhone - it's the world. How do you see that as boring? If it's boring, it's because you're learning it from a textbook.

We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.

We need to be pro-science; we have to go back to science.

Lack of scientific fundamentals causes people to make foolish decisions about issues such as the toxicity of chemicals, the efficacy of medicines, the changes in the global climate. Our single greatest defense against scientific ignorance is education, and early in the life of every scientist, the child's first interest was sparked by a teacher.

I try to show the public that chemistry, biology, physics, astrophysics is life. It is not some separate subject that you have to be pulled into a corner to be taught about.

Part of what it is to be scientifically-literate, it's not simply, 'Do you know what DNA is? Or what the Big Bang is?' That's an aspect of science literacy. The biggest part of it is do you know how to think about information that's presented in front of you.

Seriously, who really cares how long the Nile river is, or who was the first to discover cheese? How is memorizing that ever going to help anyone? Instead, we need to give kids projects that allow them to exercise their minds and discover things for themselves.

Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.

Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow.

Science has become something that everybody knows he has to pay attention to, but not everybody is a believer. So I don't think we should equate science with religion. But, that science is progressively playing a more and more important part in the life of every individual is obvious.

By no definition of any modern scientist is intelligent design science, and it's a waste of our students' time to subject them to it.

The center line of science literacy - which not many people tell you, but I feel this strongly, and I will go to my grave making this point - is how you think.

We want kids to think that they can think about science. They don't need to just play soccer.

I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.

My knowledge of science came from being with Carl, not from formal academic training. Carl gave me a thrilling tutorial in science and math that lasted the 20 years we were together.