Science Week Ireland is underway, with a varied selection of events designed to help foster public interest in the sciences. Government-funded Discover Science and Engineering organises the week-long programme which this year includes a busy schedule including 380 talks, visits, displays and shows. Its key aim is to make science more interesting and accessible to children and adults, as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin pointed out at the official launch.
Yet most of the activity is unashamedly geared towards a very specific market - primary and secondary school students. Noisy chemistry experiments that go off with a bang and comic "scientists" who teach particle physics through juggling are the stock in trade of "fun" science. Some researchers decry this approach, arguing that it dumbs down the science. Yet the hidden message is not found in the scientific accuracy but in the sense of wonder it engenders in youngsters and how well it arouses their natural curiosity about the world around them. Educationalists believe that children start with a vigorous interest in science, attracted to its more exciting aspects such as space travel, volcanoes or wildlife. All too often, however, this natural interest is ground out of them as reductive science heaps fact upon fact and the initial fun is lost.
Although teaching resources and methods are a factor here - and are being addressed in the new primary school science curriculum - it is possible to keep the interest in science alive via events such as Science Week Ireland and that other great annual participatory event, the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition held each January. Both plug students directly into the sciences, either engaging them through fun and entertainment or through actual scientific experimentation. Children learn by doing but they also enjoy taking part. For this reason Science Week can make an important contribution even if the science frays somewhat around the edges.
Something seen by a youngster over the week could plant a seed that will develop into a lifelong interest, perhaps encouraging them to act on this interest by taking science at Leaving Cert or third level. This in turn could help reverse the fall-off in the number of students making careers in the sciences, a trend seen in most OECD countries. The choices being made by third level students are highly significant. Modern technology cannot advance without the researchers and engineers who make scientific discoveries and devise new products. Ireland needs these graduates if we are to fully develop as a knowledge-based economy.