Most of America is rural, and much of Mississippi’s rural landscape is located in the Mississippi Delta, created by flooding over a thousand years ago. Rural America comprises of about 2,288 counties. About 60 million people, or about 22 percent of America’s population, lives in rural areas. Rural America consists of about 3,444,930 square miles of open land mass. About 95 percent of this land is considered rural open space.
I have been a passionate observer of the Mississippi Delta for more than 10 years. I’ve come to know its potential, its promise and its positioning for scientific wonderment. Indeed, the Mississippi Delta is a microcosm of rural America. The land, water and sky in the Delta provide limitless opportunities for the region to serve as a laboratory for the investigation and exploration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The land possesses marvelous soil that is rich in nutrients. The waterways, lakes and magnificent Mississippi River possess the fundamental mysteries behind historical transportation and irrigation systems that have contributed to the development of America today. The mystic colors that overlook the land and water from the sky provide our children with the ability to imagine possibilities beyond their neighborhoods and their schools.
Hence, as Marie Curie once said, “I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician; he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.”
The Mississippi Delta has been widely recognized and celebrated for its literary contributions, rich history, agricultural marvel and unique sociological culture. It is very seldom referenced as a learning laboratory for scientific discovery in the region’s schools.
Delta schools can engage students and teachers in scientific learning within the subject matters of science, technology and mathematics as the basis for understanding the very general principles of engineering. This will require teachers to exercise the much-needed creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit to propel intellectual and scientific wonderment of young people. School districts might consider developing scientific themes across the curricula based on the rich regional laboratory that surrounds their schools. Teaming social studies teachers with science teachers would facilitate the development between the left and right brain. These teachers might also pair up with local colleges and university professors who represent the liberal arts and natural, physical and life sciences.
In addition to marine scientific inquiry of the waterways, students can examine emerging technologies like robotics and wind energy devices, as well as systems that strengthen Delta levees. The irrigation systems and other farming and flooding issues can provide lively discussions for conceptualizing the purpose of engineering. The universal language of mathematics could be taught in ways to help our youth understand the principles behind percentages, fractions, predictability and probability.
The alluvial soil around the Delta has enormous opportunity to study earth science. The Delta’s wildlife, hunting and insects can be studied as life science. Physical science can be explored through the Delta’s aviation system for pesticide control as well as the fundamental physics behind the machines that farm the Delta and are controlled by satellite mechanisms. Geographic information systems could serve as excellent visual instructional tools for comprehending populations and communities in surrounding school districts from a helicopter or bird’s-eye view of the Delta.
What will be critical is to teach in ways that makes the subject matter relevant to real-life surroundings in the Delta. We know from research that the human mind is a sponge. We also know that young people have the propensity to absorb the world around them. From kindergarten to the senior level of high school, students can learn how to identify problems, collect data about them, analyze the complied data, and propose alternative solutions based on the data. Bertrand Russell reminds us that “science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination”.
If taught with imagination and enthusiasm, science, technology, engineering, and mathematical topics can anchor the kind of curiosity and excitement we desperately need our young people to experience so that they can avoid other habits, dispositions, attitudes and behaviors that derail their human development.
The U.S. Department of Education has reported that fewer students are enrolling and earning degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, while rural countries like India and China are doing quite well. We must begin science education early on in the systemic academic pipeline to provide upward pathways to careers in scientific fields.
We must admit that whatever we have been doing in the conventional and traditional sense has not been working, and we are losing our youth every day. We may also be losing some of our best teachers to surrounding states. Incentivizing teachers to stay and teach innovatively, and igniting our students to stay and learn creatively, will ultimately enhance regional economic development, scientific advancement, and escalation and expansion of out-of-box thinking within the region.
The first step is to believe in the Delta. The next steps should be to embrace natural curiosity, explore scientific inquiry, energize human potential and empower cognitive creativity within the minds, hearts and spirits of our students and teachers.
• Joseph Martin Stevenson is a former provost at Mississippi Valley State University. He is a subject matter expert for the Technology Management Training Group in Huntsville, Ala.
