Comment on RIP America
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 months agoWho do you think does a lot of the legwork in the lab and becomes the next generation of scientists?
Graduate students provide enormous value for their cost in funding. I’d like to better understand how k-12 students contribute here. Those students make up 88.7k of the reduction. How much do these students contribute and at what cost?
I’m in no way against inspiring the next generation. My question is aimed at correctly interpreting this table. The NSF is a worthwhile expense, but let’s understand the data we have.
I don’t even know where to start here. The report is literally linked.
PreK-12 Teachers include teachers at elementary, middle, and secondary schools. These individuals actively participate in intensive professional development experiences in the sciences and mathematics.
PreK-12 Students are those attending elementary, middle, and secondary schools. They are supported through program components that directly engage students in science and mathematics experiences.
This is the foundation building of a national science program and every dollar you spend on this comes back tenfold over time. This is also class warfare, further defending education for the marginalised populations. This also fucks climate education and so, so, so many other things. The value of public outreach, especially for the youth is not only a well studied topic, but also inherently an issue of national security.
I’m not disagreeing. The report isn’t clear. This is written by fuck wits that are asking Congress for a budget cut.
NSF programs indirectly impact millions of people, reaching PreK-12 students and teachers, the general public, and researchers
The actual impact to the pipeline may be far larger.
defending education or defunding it?
The chart is on a page discussing this:
My workplace is NSF funded and supports a number of activities designed to increase interest in the discipline among young kids or improve teaching techniques for k-12 teachers. Similarly, we run an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) program to give undergraduate students exposure to hands on research (and hopefully encourage them to stay in the discipline for graduate school).
A majority of our funding still goes to PhDs doing fundamental research, but the pipeline that feeds academic research begins with children, and research funding priorities aren’t blind to that.
they do, sadly they are recognized well, unless your in a independant lab(not part of the degree)
fartographer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
When a mommy scientist and daddy scientist love each other a lot, they pray to Caffeine and Nicotine, the gods of late-night trivial tasks…