Dr. Mae C. Jemison, a physician and former astronaut, was the first African-American woman to travel in space. She is in town this week for a conference on science education, designed to urge industry leaders to do their part to bring more women and minorities into the science and technology fields, and I asked if she would write a piece for us. Here it is. -Katy

I travel a lot.

In my travels, I get to meet lots of people from all walks of life. Many of them ask me when I first got interested in science.

The truth is, I can’t remember when I wasn’t.

Like most kids, I was born curious about the world. As children, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what’s what — like the fuzz between the couch cushions, asking our parents why the sky is blue and being both fascinated and frightened by thunder and lightning.

Growing up and deciding to become an astronaut wasn’t hard. But finding people who looked like me – female and African-American as images to assure and guide me – that was difficult.

Today, much has changed yet much remains the same. Yes, we’ve elected our first African-American president, something of which we should all be proud, but as a country we haven’t done a very good job of bringing women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans into Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics (STEM) fields … and today, we need them more than ever.

While these groups make up roughly two-thirds of our nation’s workforce, they represent only one-quarter of the STEM workforce. That has to change. Why? Read the rest of this entry »

Many consider California to be a cutting-edge state, brimming with innovation. So why do its schools rank among the last in the nation on standardized science tests?

KQED explored these questions in a 25-minute documentary, “Under the Microscope: Science Struggles in Schools.” I meant to post this on Tuesday, the night it aired, but you can watch the 25-minute show here:

I have some good news to report this morning: Franklin and Grass Valley elementary schools have received almost $1 million in NCLB funding to improve their science teaching over the course of the next four school years (including this one). Teachers will be working with each other, and with science and education faculty at UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Hall of Science, to bring science to life for the kids.

I know I’ve already posted this video about the quality (and quantity) of science teaching in Bay Area elementary schools. But that was almost a year ago, and I think it shows why such an effort is so important:

Teachers: If you teach science (alone or along with other subjects), what kind of support would help you the most?

In most of the elementary classrooms in California - 80 percent - science is taught for less than an hour a week, researchers from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science found in a study released yesterday. The researchers found that 16 percent of teachers said they spent no time at all on science.

Here is the article the Tribune published on the subject. It looks like the YouTube video was created by someone at the Lawrence Hall of Science.