Science Daily: Uranus
- NASA's Hubble, New Horizons team up for a simultaneous look at Uranus October 11, 2024
- Key to rapid planet formation August 1, 2024
Science Daily: Kuiper Belt
- Carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide on Pluto's moon Charon October 1, 2024
- How Pluto got its heart April 15, 2024
Tonight I attended a community meeting where the main topic of new business was a presentation by Thomas Greene, formerly a teacher at Fort Hamilton High School here in Bay Ridge and now an adjunct professor at Kingsborough Community College, part of the CUNY system.
The sad part of the proposal is that is is not new and has been languishing since Bloomberg and Klein came to power. I generally try to avoid anything political or even very personal in these posts because I want the focus to be on science. In this case it is impossible to separate the science advocacy from the political actions of the current administration. According to Greene, in 2001 the proposal was nearly a done deal with only an environmental impact statement left to complete. Alas, it wasn’t completed before the then new Mayor Bloomberg took office and, although the proposal had the support of local politicians, the Department of Education (DOE), and the local community, nothing was done. Enter Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein and the ensuing sea change at the DOE.
Greene reports that the Mayor and the Chancellor has largely ignored correspondence on the matter. Speaking from my own first-hand experience in trying to get a response from the Mayor’s office where it took over six months and numerous duplicate letters and FAXes, this treatment seems all too familiar.
So what is the proposal? There is a small parcel of land on the Brooklyn side of the Verazzano Narrows which is known as Denyse Wharf. The concrete pier is designated as a historical landmark and thus has to be preserved, but next to it is a small sandy beach (which is submerged at high tide) and rocky area that acts as a tidal pool. The proposal would build two laboratory spaces with capacity for up to 30 students each and include, for lack of a better term, a visitors gallery around the periphery. While the official response that this space is inaccessible sounds reasonable, anyone who has visited the area during the summer (a favorite bicycling spot for our family) knows it is quite accessible with a small parking area both before and after the bridge as well as being within typical walking distance of the 95th Street R-train stop.
The other half of the official objection is that is is not cost-effective. Ahem. Most of our schools do not have any lab space in violation of state education standards. The standards of "cost effective" is, unfortunately, totally undefined by the DOE and so impossible to rebutt. However, it is wholly ineffective to stuff our schools to the point that some have admissions capped due to crowding up to the legally safe limits. And even those which do not suffer that fate have class sizes above the state recommended levels. And they get there by giving up lab space for science education.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are the core of our education. But science is the overarching arena which unites these core items and it is also the arena in which our future lies. That is, the future of our nation, our state, our city, and most importantly, our children. If it is too expensive to build lab space in every school (a goal I whole-heartedly support), then it makes sense to at the very least set up shared lab space for schools which cannot support dedicated labs.
You can read more about the proposal from this article in the Brooklyn Paper.
Written by Roland Roberts
Search
.Archives
- October 2024 (1)
- May 2024 (2)
- April 2024 (3)
- September 2022 (5)
- April 2022 (1)
- January 2022 (3)
- December 2021 (4)
- September 2021 (3)
- July 2021 (1)
- January 2021 (1)
- November 2020 (2)
- October 2020 (2)
- September 2020 (2)
- August 2020 (5)
- July 2020 (1)
- November 2019 (2)
- September 2019 (1)
- August 2019 (2)
- September 2017 (1)
- August 2017 (1)
- September 2015 (3)
- August 2015 (2)
- June 2015 (5)
- May 2015 (3)
- May 2013 (2)
- January 2013 (1)
- December 2012 (2)
- September 2012 (1)
- June 2012 (1)
- May 2012 (1)
- October 2011 (2)
- September 2011 (2)
- April 2011 (2)
- March 2011 (10)
- January 2011 (8)
- November 2010 (2)
- October 2010 (1)
- September 2010 (3)
- August 2010 (2)
- July 2010 (1)
- June 2010 (1)
- April 2010 (3)
- February 2010 (3)
- January 2010 (3)
- December 2009 (6)
- November 2009 (3)
- October 2009 (7)
- September 2009 (8)
- August 2009 (4)
- July 2009 (1)
- June 2009 (2)
- May 2009 (2)
- April 2009 (7)
- March 2009 (1)
- February 2009 (6)
- January 2009 (4)
- December 2008 (4)
- November 2008 (3)
- October 2008 (11)
- September 2008 (4)
- August 2008 (5)
- July 2008 (5)
- June 2008 (2)
- April 2008 (4)
- March 2008 (18)
- February 2008 (9)
- November 2007 (1)
- October 2007 (3)
- July 2007 (3)
- April 2007 (1)
- March 2007 (6)
- February 2007 (3)
- December 2006 (3)
- October 2006 (4)
- September 2006 (1)
- July 2006 (5)
- May 2006 (10)
- April 2006 (9)