In an email letter send to all members of NARST, its President, Charlene M. Czerniak reminded members of the theme of next year’s NARST annual meeting: Grand Challenges and Great Opportunities in Science Education. In her letter, she reminded us that a number of organizations have issued “grand challenges” statements over the past few years. One of these organizations is the AAAS, and for its 125th anniversary began publishing a collection of articles that looked at the most compelling puzzles and questions facing scientists today. The editors of science ended up with 125 questions. From this collection of 125, the editors choose 25 questions that they felt were fundamental, how broad-ranging, and whether the solutions would impact other disciplines. Here are the 25 questions.
- What Is the Universe Made Of?
- What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
- Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
- To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
- Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
- How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
- What Controls Organ Regeneration?
- How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
- How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?
- How Does Earth’s Interior Work?
- Are We Alone in the Universe?
- How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
- What Determines Species Diversity?
- What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
- How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
- How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
- How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of Biological Data?
- How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
- What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?
- Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?
- Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?
- Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?
- How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?
- What Can Replace Cheap Oil — and When?
- Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?
Opportunity for Teaching
Each of these questions is linked to an article that briefly explores some of the issues related to the question. You can go to this link to read any of the articles. I’ve linked the question, What Can Replace Cheap Oil — and When, to reinforce yesterday’s blog entry on energy. These questions are opportunities for science teaching.
Do you think one or more of these questions could be integrated into your curriculum? How do you think discussing these questions with students would impact their view of the nature of science?
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