If You Could Train the Next Generation of Scientific and Technological Innovators….

If you could train the next generation of scientific and technological innovators, how would you go about it? What aspects of education, in school or out, would you add, change or jettison?

These important questions have recently been posed by the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. The Board will host two-and-a-half days of discussion at the end of August, 2009, and Bob has been invited to participate. The object is to envision new educational programs capable of fostering students most likely to make major breakthroughs in science, technology and mathematics. The National Science Foundation believes that to keep America at the forefront of innovation, something must be done to improve science, math and technological training. But what?

Instead of telling you what we think about this important topic, we've decided to run a bit of an experiment by asking you, our readers, what you think.

If you are one of the creative types that the National Science Foundation is looking for, what formal and informal educational experiences helped or hindered you?

If you got turned off at some point in your education by the current way math, science and technology are taught, what might have been done to stimulate your continued interest?

Who or what do you think makes an individual into an innovator?

What kind of programs would you devise to meet the National Science Foundation's objectives?

We want your input! We want the input of your colleagues and friends! Please feel free to send this post around and encourage responses at the blog site.

With your help, sometime later in the summer, before the NSF colloquium, we'll summarize what we've learned.

© Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein 2009