How to bridge our maths and science gap
Many theories will be offered to explain this lack followed by the announcement of grandiose, complicated and usually very expensive plans to correct this problem.
However, unless we build user-friendly, hands-on science centres to attract and engage children from their earliest years, then all such plans will fail.
That said, there have been a number of attempts to create such centres.
One of the first was proposed as far back as 1994 for the old Pigeon House station in Ringsend, Dublin.
Unfortunately, this did not materialise and neither did proposals for Stack ‘A’ in the IFSC or for the old fruit market site, both in Dublin city centre.
In the early ‘90s, while working on the Pigeon House project, I discovered that India already had many such centres where children (and their parents) could play with and learn from simple experiments in maths, physics, chemistry and biology. This investment has paid off handsomely with India now a world leader in many areas of technology and science.
It is too late to try to interest students in science and maths when they reach second-level. So, for once, let us do the simple thing and build the pyramid from the wide end up. Let us get children interested in science and maths by providing such centres.
After all, if we don’t nurture the acorn we have no hope of seeing the oak.
Henry Hudson
17 Cedar Walk
Raheny
Dublin 5
