Hitchcock LECTURE SERIES

A Scientist Addresses Science Education

Leon Lederman, Founder and Resident Scholar, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, Director Emeritus, Fermilab, and Pritzker Professor of Science, Illinois Institute of Technology

October 14, 2009 — 4:10 PM
International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont Avenue, Berkeley

The crisis in science education (pre-K-14) has been widely recognized at least since the report "A Nation at Risk" was published in 1983. This report accompanies a huge number of later reports. All sit happily, side by side, read and appreciated but never implemented, in secret storage places somewhere in Washington DC. There is good reason for new optimism, but the persistent failure to implement the well understood cures must be understood before we can capitalize on the awesome wisdom now accumulating in Washington.

About Leon Lederman

Leon Lederman is internationally renowned for his research on neutrinos, ghostlike particles that pass through everything in the universe, and on subatomic particles known as quarks. He received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982 for discovering the bottom quark, which established the existence of a third generation of quarks. In 1988, Lederman was co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger) for his discovery of the muon neutrino, proving that there are at least two families of neutrinos. The experiment's use of the first-ever neutrino beam paved the way for scientists to use these particles in research around the world. Neutrinos have since been used as a way of analyzing everything from the structure of the atomic nucleus to the energy level of an exploding star, or supernova. His research has provided major advances in the understanding of "weak interactions," one of the fundamental nuclear forces. In addition to his work as a researcher, Lederman is also a leading proponent of science and math education at the high school and college level. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in 1986 and has served as Resident Scholar since 1998. IMSA is an internationally-recognized educational institution for developing talent and stimulating excellence in teaching and learning in mathematics, science and technology. Lederman is also an outspoken advocate for the “Physics First” movement, which seeks to rearrange the current high school science curriculum so that physics precedes chemistry and biology. Lederman received his Master's in 1948 and his Ph.D. in 1951 from Columbia University. In 1963, he proposed the idea that eventually became the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he served as Director from 1979-1989, and is now Director Emeritus. He has previously served as the Eugene Higgins Professor at Columbia and as the Frank L. Sulzberger Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, before becoming the Pritzker Professor of Physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1992. Lederman is a founding member of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the United States Department of Energy, and currently serves as a member of the National Academy of Science. Lederman has published over 300 papers and co-authored the books, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What Is the Question? (1989) and From Quarks to the Cosmos: Tools of Discovery (1995).