"We need, absolutely, a radical change in education," Lederman said, arguing that physics should be taught before chemistry and biology in high schools.
The scientific lecture was held in the Music Recital Hall of the Center for the Arts. "The Langenberg Lecture: Perspectives on Education" honored Donald Langenberg, a former University System of Maryland chancellor.
Lederman, an internationally renowned high-energy physicist, is the director emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 for his work with neutrinos. He envisions chemistry as a pyramid, with mathematics as its foundation, followed by physics, and then chemistry.
Biology is positioned at the top of the pyramid, so it should be taught after physics and chemistry, but in 97 percent of high schools, biology is taught before the other two subjects, he said, leading to this statement: "Our curriculum is 100 years old and 70 years out of date," he said. "And we cannot maintain a 21st century economy with a 19th century curriculum."
The teaching model is called Physics First. Lederman said about 1,000 high schools have reordered their science class sequence to offer conceptual physics before chemistry and biology.
"But with 1,000 successes, I have 25,000 high schools still to go," he said. "At the present rate, it'll take 211 years...so there's a big problem."
Lederman listed the challenges to change in science education, beginning with the recruitment, training and retention of teachers; the science curriculum; and the teaching materials and technology. (In other words: How to teach, what to teach, and how to deliver teaching.) These are followed by the "disconnects" of the system, the absence of continuous professional development, and a need to streamline the system and "reduce the resistance to change."
He called for collaboration between corporations, universities, scientists and educators.
"We desperately need some organization for this and some pulling-together of all the many efforts on this, so we can start to make major changes in science education," he said.
College of Education Dean Raymond Lorion was impressed by Lederman's presentation.
"I really doubt that anyone came to hear a Nobel laureate and expected to laugh, to understand it, and to go away really energized about what we heard," but we did, Lorion said.
Lederman interspersed his talk with funny anecdotes about galactic wormholes, Aristotle's pee, and even a story from the satirical news source The Onion.
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