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Hey Bill Nye, 'Do I Have to Choose Between a Science and Arts Education?' #TuesdaysWithBill
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May 3, 2016
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Bill Nye the Science Guy explains how reinvigorating basic research and development in our schools resulted in the acronym STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), and why new acronyms are emerging.
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BILL NYE:
Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.
In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.
While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”
Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.
Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.
Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Sam Passer: Hi Bill Nye this is Sam Passer. And my question for you is, as an art student myself, do I have to choose between art and science for our next generations to thrive or can art and science coexist? Please let me know. Thanks.
Bill Nye: Sam! Sam! Sam! Art and science have to coexist. They're both human endeavors. However, just keep in mind I am a science guy and like this that science, this process that humans have developed seems to be, to my way of thinking, the best idea we've had, the best idea we've had about how to know nature, how to know our place in the world, in the cosmos. But without art we would hardly be people. Art is created by people and it inspires each of us. It's the way we send messages. It's the way we motivate each other or keep each other from doing something. Art is part of us. We don't want art or science, we want to both.
With that said, a little commentary about our current controversy in education in the United States, everybody goes on and on with this acronym STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. And this is a fine acronym. It talks about or it was created to address what was a clear need here in the United States after people landed on the moon, investment in basic research was curtailed, except in the military spending. And so we stopped, the United States stopped doing as much basic research as it had been doing and so to reinvigorate this people created this acronym and there's all these science, technology, engineering and math programs in school. It's good. It's good.
Now people talk about STEAM: science, technology, engineering, art and math. Well good. Yes. And I've heard STEAMd: science, technology, engineering, art, math and design. Okay. Pretty soon the acronym is going to have all the letters that we would call the SCHOOL, just SCHOOL. You go to school and you've got to have math; you've got to have language arts, English in my case and the United States were English is the primary language; you've got to have a history; you got to have a – I'd like us to hav...
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