[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 47 (Wednesday, April 24, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 
                              ACT OF 2002

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 24, 2002

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, Monday was Earth Day, marking the 32nd 
anniversary of an annual commemoration that has served a very useful 
purpose. I have chosen to commemorate Earth Day Week by encouraging 
this Congress to do more to protect the earth every day. I am 
introducing the Academic Excellence and Environmental Sciences Act. My 
bill seeks to encourage academic rigor in scientific education by 
beginning at the lower grades through the study of the environmental 
sciences and the use of hands-on recycling.
  The bill would provide grants to local school systems to encourage 
them to include in their curricula scientific ideas based on conserving 
the natural resources children see around them and hands on recycling 
to make vital connections between knowledge and practice.
  This bill has two important goals. The first comes from the 
difficulty of imparting and explaining scientific ideas and concepts, 
some of them fairly abstract, to elementary school children, and 
holding their interest. As a result of this difficulty, in the 
elementary grades, children are often relegated to ``play science'' 
that does not prepare them for later scientific learning.
  Second, I believe that hands-on recycling will help children 
cultivate habits that conserve our resources at the same time that it 
will help concretize their interest in science and their understanding 
of scientific concepts. By the time many youngsters are exposed to 
science in high schools, large numbers of them have lost interest or 
simply are unready for the rigors that are necessary to become 
proficient.
  We are starting too late to capture and hold the interest of our 
children in science. The country loses because of the reduced pool of 
scientists and scientific experts. Increasingly, many of the places for 
science study in our colleges and universities are occupied by young 
people from abroad, who come here to study science because this country 
has the best science in the world. Part of the impetus for my bill 
comes from my experience in recruiting our own D.C. youngsters to the 
U.S. military academies. I am pressing my own school system, the D.C. 
public schools, to begin science and math at earlier years so that 
children acquire a lasting interest in science and become prepared for 
the rigors of the military academies and other colleges.
  Although the major emphasis of my bill is scientific education for 
young children, I also hope to encourage recycling approaches. I 
believe that recycling techniques involving children--saving papers and 
crushing cans and discussing where these materials come from and why 
they degrade, etc.--will help give meaning to the teaching underlying 
scientific ideas. Children may be the best messengers for recycling and 
for saving the environment for future generations. They are the real 
environmentalists in this society. They have the greatest stake.
  If we want scientists, we had best get them before they are turned 
off, even before junior high school; otherwise they are off to computer 
games or cable and other interests. If we want to save the environment, 
we had best begin with our children.

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