Select Committee on Science and Technology Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200 - 206)

TUESDAY 19 MARCH 2002

JOEL BROWN, LEXI BOYCE, MARK TOWERS, SAM FORD AND KARL STRINGER

  200. How often?
  (Mark Towers) I am actively interested in science and always have been. I watch programmes such as Horizon and documentaries. I read the New Scientist. But that is not everybody's thing because some people are not that interested in science itself. If there is one thing which really interests me, I will go out and look for more information on it.

  201. Do teachers encourage you to do that? Let me ask the others this. Do teachers encourage you to go and read other articles? Do you read the New Scientist?
  (Karl Stringer) I think students are more likely to be encouraged to consolidate what they have been doing in class so they can pass the exam. They are really not concerned with what you do outside the class in science. That is the general impression I get.
  (Sam Ford) I was never encouraged to do research for GCSE and I do not do science now. I do still find some science interesting but I only do obviously what interests me and the rest I do not find interesting, which is why I did not do science A-level.

  202. And you?
  (Lexi Boyce) What was the question? Sorry!

  203. Do teachers encourage you to go and do other reading outside the classroom curriculum?
  (Lexi Boyce) No, not really. Mainly it is learning.

  204. So science stops at the classroom door?
  (Lexi Boyce) I am not carrying on science because I do not want to do it after GCSE but I am very interested in science things and I do read newspapers and the New Scientist. My mother works for a publishing company which publishes science books, so I read a lot of what she does because I copy edit. So I am very interested but because of the way it was taught at GCSE it did not interest me at all, so I did not want to carry it on. If in GCSE science you could learn—as well as, obviously, the background facts that everybody needs to know about it—things which interest you and different topics and things to do with ethics, then I think a lot more people would carry on. I probably would have carried on if it was more the things you read in the New Scientist.

  205. Finally?
  (Joel Brown) Hopefully I am not the only doctor in the hall. My reason for studying science is not to gather knowledge, I want to get the ground knowledge so when I move on to medical school I will have some idea. Yes, I do read, I read the British Medical Journal, I read other scientific journals and get involved and see the news and get views from other people, doctors and other scientists around.

  206. Do any of you have role models, somebody you look up to besides David Beckham, if you are interested in football? Is there anybody in science you look up to?
  (Joel Brown) Einstein.

  Chairman: He is not around much any more! Does anybody else have anybody in particular who stimulates them in science. No? Okay, thank you very much.






 
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