One Legacy of Paul F. Brandwein

This book includes a brief biography of Paul Brandwein, but its most vital contribution are the essays about Paul F. Brandwein s teaching that encouraged a number of the high school students he taught between 1944 and 1954 at Forest Hills High School in New York to become some of America s most important scientists. In addition to the individual essays, there are cross-sectional study of the surveys returned by the 29 "Brandwein alumni," located by Richard Lewontin, James Friend, the late Walter Rosen, and Deborah Fort over the years since Paul Brandwein s death in 1994. Creating Scientists might point the way to a replicable method that teachers (often, in addition, serving as mentors) could follow in encouraging their precollege students with a bent for science to choose to follow that inclination into postsecondary studies and eventually careers in science, mathematics, engineering, medical, and technical fields. "Once again, our nation has a powerful need for a revolution devoted to creating scientists. As we face the challenges of climate change, global competitiveness, biodiversity loss, energy needs, and dwindling food supplies, we find ourselves in a period where both scientific literacy and the pool of next-generation scientists are dwindling. To solve these complex issues and maintain our own national security, we have to rebuild a national ethos based on sound science education for all, from which a new generation of scientists will emerge. The challenge is how to create this transformation. Those shaping national policy today, in 2009, need look no further than what worked a half-century ago. ... Paul F. Brandwein spent his professional life as a scientist, educator, author, and publisher focused on the deep question of how we as a nation can create the scientist within. Through varied contributions from his former students, his colleagues, and his friends, One Legacy of Paul F. Brandwein: Creating Scientists explores how one man s teachings and philosophies on science, education, and environmentalism both laid the groundwork for the first great science education revolution in our nation s history and prepared the way for the one so necessary today. Many of the essays in this book offer firsthand reflections by former students and colleagues of Paul s during the 1950s and beyond that record the impact of, and inspiration that resulted from, their encounters. Paul s insights highlighted in this book illuminate a path forward for us today, as we work to create the second American science education revolution." Keith A. Wheeler, President, The Paul F-Brandwein Institute, Unionville, New York, USA.