by Karen Young Kreeger

SO YOU LOVE to teach. Now that the school year is in full swing, are you wondering how you can contribute more to the next generation, keep your interest in teach ing alive and well, or enhance the peda gogical portion of your resume? "Scientists need to share the wealth of their knowledge and their perspective of the way the world works," says Bassam Shakhashiri, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. For 30 years he has been taking his love and enthusiasm for science to the public via lectures and demonstrations; television and radio shows; and now the Web, among other venues. Shakhashiri and others cite a long list of ways that researchers can reach out: giving talks to community groups, working with students and teachers in local schools and museums, interacting with reporters and legislators, and serving on school boards, to name a few.

Some investigators have even opted to leave the bench and teach in high school science classrooms. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "Attracting Science and Mathematics Ph.D.s to Secondary School Education," (National Academy Press, 2000) explores this very subject. In fact, middle school and high school are the most important times in which to catch and keep a child's interest in science. This is the age at which negative attitudes toward science start to creep into the psyche, warns Shakhashiri. And, he adds, scientists can play an important role in helping to stem this tide of negativity by volunteering in the classroom, running workshops for teachers, developing curricula, or teaching kids themselves.

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