PROFILE
AND KEY CONCERNS
Walter J. Bogan,
Director of Education
Programs,
June
2007
I
became interested in environmental science as a young chemistry teacher in the early
60s and I read Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth by William L. Thomas
and Dare the School Build a New Social Order? by George S. Counts
and the future of my life in education had a new vector.
The
Scientists' Institute for Public Information (SIPI) employed me to work
with Barry Commoner, Margaret Mead, Rene Dubos, Edward Tatum, Fred Robbins and
Warren Weaver in my early 20s on education an the public understanding of
science and technology.
Two
principals informed and guided SIPI's work:
"The
scientific community should, on its own initiative, assume an obligation to
call to public attention those issues of public policy which relate to science,
and to provide for the general public the facts and estimates of the effects of
alternative policies, which the citizen must have if he is to participate
intelligently in the solution of these problems."
Report
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Committee on Science
and the Promotion for Human Welfare
"Outside
his laboratory, (the scientist's) task is to educate us in what goes inside it,
and to give it a meaning for us. In a world in which statesman as much as
voters are ignorant of the simplest implications in science, this is a
formidable responsibility… (The scientist) has no other choice today but
patiently to become a teacher, in a world in which distrust and prejudice are
free… there is no alternative to an informed public opinion; and that can exist
only where scientists speak to voters, and voters accept their responsibility,
which is to listen, to weigh, and then to make their own choice."
J.
Bronowski
As
a part of my orientation and continuing education at SIPI, I read Commoner's
book Science and Survival and Lamont Cole's article the Ecological Crisis and
Lynn White's article the Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis in Science
Magazine and later So Human an Animal and A God Within by Dubos. The
I
participated with Margaret Mead in the World Council of Church's conference in
I
represented SIPI as an NGO at the UN in preparation for the Stockholm
Conference in 1972 and was elected chairman of US based NGOs participating in
the Stockholm Conference.
SIPI
played a significant role in preparing NGO's for more effective participation
in the 1972 conference of Human Environment. The Institute sponsored a
conference in April to provide substantive background information for citizens'
groups; representatives of 153 NGOs attended. The meeting was chaired by
Margaret Mead, President and featured a talk by Barry Commoner. Two
distinguished UN ambassadors also spoke: Ambassador Keith Johnson, Permanent
Representative of
After
In
1980 I left the Department of Education to join the AAAS where I developed and
became Director of a Center for Education of Global Change just before
In
November 2006 the Newark Public School and University Heights Science Park and
the we opened Science Park High School $72M Sustainable designed (LEED)
facility with a fiber optic infrastructure to link an urban school system and
three research universities in a K-20 Internet2 consortium to prepare urban
minority students for entry into the health, science and technology careers of
the future.
I
am currently developing a Digital Media and
KEY
INTERESTS:
·
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
OF THE RECIPROCAL INTERACTIONS OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY AND THE IMPLICATIONS
FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
·
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
OF SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH, HUMAN HEALTH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
·
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
OF THE LOCAL EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION
·
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR CAREERS IN NEW MEDIA AND THE SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY