This award is bestowed on working scientists and engineers to recognize their outstanding contributions to the popularization of science. Howard Schachman, Professor of the Graduate School and Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, will receive the AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. This award honors scientists and engineers whose exemplary actions, often taken at significant personal cost, have served to foster scientific freedom and responsibility. The staff at these schools signed an agreement last spring to attend professional development courses in science, math, and technology, and to take steps to increase student performance in those areas. To further this goal, they agreed also to increase the number of 8th graders taking Algebra I, and to bolster the enrollment in advanced courses in science and mathematics.
Teacher training is only one piece of the program, however.
Even though the focus is on math, science and technology, we've got to look at everything. We're looking at the structure of a school so that we can make instruction the focus. The DC ACTS program will be managed by Joan Abdallah, program director in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources. The directorate provides quality programs in science, mathematics, and technology education for K to 12 teachers and works to increase participation of minorities, women, and people with disabilities in science and engineering and improve public understanding of science and technology. We've got to work through this together.