Science Teaching

The Minister obviously does. I would much rather that the person marrying her was a scientist than a drummer—but there we go. It reflects the education in that school; the music department is well run, has all the necessary equipment and attracts young people. The science department could do the same, but its laboratories use those dull brown-topped wooden desks with ““Tony loves Cherie”” and other such messages scratched on them, because young bored people spend time listening but not really taking anything in. The school garden in Norwich that I mentioned is important and is really developing. One young person said of it:"““It makes more sense actually seeing and touching things than reading about them in a textbook. We are even going to go to the junior school and help them with their own garden.””" My Committee found the same thing. That is the kind of experimentation that we want. Young people are also fascinated by boiling things and get a kick out of making colours in test tubes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East said. I had a chemistry set as a child and remember applying to a medical school and saying, ““Ever since the days of my first chemistry set, I have been interested in understanding how the world works.”” However, that argument did not wash with the great deans of Edinburgh university, where applicants needed parents who went to the right school. But that is another story; hopefully those days are over, but I doubt it. Professor Balkwill is also developing, at Queen Mary's college, an outfit where a cell will be manufactured architecturally so that people can come in off the streets and get involved. I have always wondered why science and art museums do not mix. However, I shall come on to the interaction between science and the arts later. I do not have to tell Members about the fascination with dinosaurs and the Natural History museum, where people can learn what a dinosaur was and discuss, until the cows come home, how and why they died out. I have some other books with me. One is ““Why Can't I… Jump up to the Moon?: And Other Questions about Energy””—perhaps the Minister will tell me why he cannot jump up to the moon—and another is ““Why Can't I… Sleep on a Bed of Bubbles?: And Other Questions about Materials””. They have been written for young people, but do not seem to have got into the classroom to the extent that I think that they should have. I know, too, about an anthology of poetry and artwork around science by children from Rockland St Mary county primary school and Framingham Earl high school, which is just outside Norwich. It is quite brilliant how they developed poems around scientific structures seen down an electron microscope and so on. It is wonderful to see the interest in the questions and the enthusiasm that it generates. That happened because a young woman doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the John Innes centre decided to do it. She is a high-flyer in her research field, but wanted to put something back into the community because she could see that there was a need for it. We often talk about the shortage of teachers, but sometimes we could use people in universities, such as postdoctoral and PhD students, who are the lifeblood of research in this country. I learned that first-hand from Paul Nurse, who is one of our Nobel prize winners. They do all the work; they stimulate ideas, lecture among undergraduates and help them in practicals and so on. We should use that force, until we get the numbers that we need in physics, chemistry and biology. I speak from practical experience. I once went on a course to Murray house in Scotland for three months. I think that I passed, although I was told off for not wearing a tie—such is rebellion in Scotland. However, instead of teaching religion to a class, when I visited a school, I took the children outside to show them how to take corner and penalty kicks. I do not think that the two of us doing it were sacked, but we were moved on. Nevertheless, many stimulating activities can be undertaken. I shall move on from the enthusiasm in practical school classes to postgraduate and undergraduate students, who to some extent get a rough deal. They cannot always see a career in front of them, because of the limited number of grants, which can be for one or three years, but not for five years. That is changing gradually; bright young people who want to stay in science are being given a career structure, which is necessary in that field. Finally, one of the reasons why those students are giving up is that they cannot do exciting experiments on a Friday afternoon after they have been to the pub—hopefully not for too long. Nevertheless, they try things out—““I wonder what would happen if…?””. Science is about asking such questions. To a large extent, that has been taken out of their training. Research assessment exercises now require a safe pair of hands and safe experiments so that they can get the paper out. Much of the paper work is done by postgraduate students—although their names still appear last, after the senior professor and so on. They are not recognised properly in our society for their value to science education. We could do much more with them. Hopefully, at last, something will happen, because we have been talking about these things for some years. Things are happening in certain places—I gave a few examples—but not nationally.