Personal statement from Tom Shepard (Director)

"Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models." These were President Obama's words earlier this Winter as he announced the launch of a new initiative to spur interest in science and science research for our nation’s young people.

These are welcome sentiments to a society where sports, entertainment and American Idol pervade our youth culture and not surprisingly, where our teens rank 24th in science and math around the world. But they are not new.

In 1921, the renowned journalist Edward Scripps founded an organization called Science Service to help make science and science reporting accessible to the mainstream public. Although he died in 1926, his successor, Watson Davis, went on to popularize science in the media through The Science News-Letter (renamed Science News in 1966), Things In Science radio program for CBS News and the creation of hundreds of science clubs around the country. Until his death, Davis promoted the idea that science and journalism could be, if not happy, at least coexistent, bedfellows. Despite the public’s suspicion of and resistance to scientific facts and figures, journalists who covered scientific research could and should make science engaging, accessible, and human. Perhaps Davis’ most notable and lasting contribution was in 1942 when Science Service partnered with the Westinghouse Corporation to create the Science Talent Search.

Nearly 70 years later, this competition, now sponsored by Intel, continues to energize and award young people for whom science is the major driving force in their lives. Every year, approximately 2000 accomplished high-school seniors vie for a spot among 40 top finalists and travel to Washington D.C. to present their work at the National Academy of Sciences, the public and to a fear-inducing final round of judging with nationally recognized scientists. Just as Davis envisioned back in the 1940s, opportunities for scholarships based on scientific curiosity and academic merit should be available to boys and girls who show promise in what we now call STEM related fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.) Today, Intel awards over a million dollars a year in scholarships through the Science Talent Search. Alumni of the competition include holders of more than 100 of the world's most coveted science and math honors: among them, three National Medal of Science winners, ten MacArthur Foundation Fellows, and seven Nobel Laureates.

As a 17-year-old, I became a Science Talent Search finalist in 1987 with a project on harvester ant pheromones in my hometown of Colorado Springs. And while this award undoubtedly was responsible for my admission to Stanford, a host of science scholarships, and potential career opportunities, I'm not ashamed to report that I declined to become a scientist. At least professionally. Instead, I became a documentary filmmaker.

The lesson for me: regardless of how many (or how large) our pedigrees in science and math, scientific curiosity is innate. It should not only be encouraged early on but celebrated, honored, and modeled, just as our President affirmed this week. As Nobel Prize winning Chemist Dudley Herschbach reminds us: Even toddlers and young children exhibit the scientific method as they trial and error their way through life, pushing the boundaries of their parents or care-givers and constantly asking questions to better understand the world around them. Although not a professional scientist, my background in science informs my life every day as an average citizen trying to make good choices. Making our society more technically literate, generally, might be as laudable a goal as producing ten thousand new doctorates in science and engineering.

I wish Watson Davis was alive today so that he might see our new film WHIZ KIDS this Summer. The film chronicles three high schoolers, none of whom had many privileges growing up, all of whom have unbounded passion for science and determination to succeed in the world. They, too, are competing in the Intel Science Talent Search. In directing this film, I see now that I bridged my own lives – the past life of a teenaged scientist and the current life of a grown up journalist. I think Davis would approve. And I know he would be inspired by what I've seen these last few years: a new generation of Americans who want to use science as a primary tool to solve the biggest problems of our day.