Nurturing interest in science and understanding the role of a scientist by teaching younger students how to apply scientific thinking during daily activities

Scientific advancements continue to occur rapidly with much enthusiasm across the scientific community; however, that is not matched by an equally strong trend of the general population becoming interested in learning about or supporting science (7). This discordance between the public interest in scientific findings and progress is particularly relevant in underrepresented groups. In this article, we present a set of activities that were performed to evaluate the outcomes of teaching the role of scientists in society, the applicability of the scientific method, and the integration of physiology in daily tasks in a group of students attending elementary school in Ponce, Puerto Rico (PR). With this intervention, we aim to promote scientific interest from an early age by demonstrating to these students how to incorporate and use science for their benefit and not just as part of their school curriculum. Representation of the Hispanic population in research, clinical studies, science education programs, and scientific workforce lags behind that of other ethnic groups. According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 8% of Hispanic students during the year 2009–2010 obtained a certificate or degree in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The National Science Foundation reports that, in 2015, Hispanics represented 7% of the STEM workforce. On the other hand, the Joint Economic Committee foresees that STEM careers will have a 17% increase in the United States over the next 10 yr. Similarly, the Hispanic population will continue to significantly increase. With a rise in their demographics, it is important to have an equal representation of Hispanics among the STEM workforce and in leadership positions. In PR, a scarcity of research opportunities across all levels of education, but particularly undergraduate and earlier, leave the student population underserved. This limits scientific education, participation, and subsequently the opportunity of developing scientists who can benefit from the potential for research and development on the island and abroad. In an effort to identify factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of the Hispanic population in science, several aspects, such as economic, cultural, and educational, have been studied (1, 4). Many of these barriers have started to be eliminated by the development of programs that promote STEM careers. Some of these programs include the following: Upward Bound, the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP), Short-Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons (STEP-UP), and the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) from the National Institutes of Health. Nevertheless, even when there are opportunities for minority students to engage in a scientific experience and when there are living examples of Hispanic scientists to serve as role models, it seems to fall short of encouraging adequate participation in science of both the students and the general community. The Ponce Research Institute at Ponce Health Sciences University (PHSU) in Ponce, PR, has, over the past decade, developed annual outreach activities, some of these as part of the Physiology Understanding (PhUn) Week sponsored by the American Physiological Society, which now impacts more than 100,000 students nationwide (15). Our scientists (faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and technical staff) visit schools and universities in the southern area of the island to introduce students to a more practical way of learning about physiology and other fields of science. We have done this by combining interactive talks with hands-on stations that allow the participants to get involved and obtain information in an active way. Importantly, different tools, such as movies, demonstrations of real organs and tissues, application of the scientific method, short experiments, games, and other activities, are included, besides the traditional chalk talk, as part of the learning experience. Many of the results collected during these events have been presented at the annual Experimental Biology meetings and have been published as abstracts or presented during PhUn Week information sessions (8, 12). We also train undergraduate students from several institutions in PR who rotate in our laboratories and are exposed to active scientific research, either as volunteers or through various honors programs. However, despite an awareness of this need for exposure to research opportunities and many years of work, it seems that the level of effort put into training and educating is still not producing an adequate increase in students pursuing and completing careers in STEM or becoming advocates for science (6). Based on our own experiences, we have discerned that perhaps we should not be focusing all of our energies on the high school and undergraduate students, since they are the closest groups to the step of pursuing a scientific career. Rather, we need to also target the younger students (elementary school), where our efforts to expose and educate might be received with even greater enthusiasm, because, at this age, students are more open-minded and at the peak of learning and exploring. If we wait until high school, it might be too late to motivate future scientists or at least to help them develop a sense of the value of science to society. This is especially true in a population in which careers in research are unfamiliar to many or poorly understood. It is important to teach these children that science is not an abstract phenomenon limited to a career option, but that it is a tool we all can use to understand and enrich everyday life. It has been demonstrated that children possess scientist-like traits (inquisitiveness) by nature and can more readily come up with causal inferences than adults (11). They like to explore new things, constantly ask questions, and are more creative. Taking this into consideration, we have focused our recent activities toward showing elementary school students that science pervades their daily life in ways that supersede the school curriculum. We show them that scientists work in a variety of places and perform different tasks, and that understanding physiology can help us make important decisions daily. It is necessary to prevent these students from shunning science as esoteric, inaccessible, or boring. Sharing our very own examples as scientists with these young students is important to create awareness of the role of scientists in our society at the present time and not just as a part of history. Our main goal is to let these students know that science is fun and useful in many settings outside the laboratory. We want them to see not only the importance of having scientists doing research, but also that scientists are great educators. They need to know how scientists work in collaboration with other health professionals to understand diseases and develop therapies. We have to educate these children about the need for scientists within the government to provide facts that frame debates and guide important decisions related to health, environment, and technology. The way science is taught needs to incorporate the practical use of science and not just the memorization of concepts. Breaking down the traditional stereotype of a scientist and presenting the importance of science and the scientific method in everyday life is where we want to focus our activities. The most important outcome of these outreach activities is to instill in these students, regardless of their young age, the capacity and drive to be leaders in their homes and communities as we show them how science is integrated into everything we do. Making them aware that they can use science for things as simple as making healthier choices when they eat something or practicing sports to promote a healthier brain is a way for them to feel comfortable with science. Equally important, we need to emphasize to the teachers in our local schools that science can be taught in a variety of ways that do not require high costs, or sophisticated technologies. If we can change the traditional way people, especially children, see science and they become more interested and understand its relevance, not just as a career, but as something that can benefit them as individuals, then we will have accomplished our objective.