ScienceMakers Toolkit Manual - The History Makers

Earth Science
Clip 8 - Working with young people: During the school year, all of the students from fourth grade up are allowed
to tour this place. And we have all of them coming in, and we show them; we talk to them. We’re trying
to get the young people interested in science. And I do a lot of this in the metropolitan areas, especially in the
inner city. I go in and talk to the kids and talk to them and say, look, you can do this. You can be this. If you
want to do this, you got to work and do this. And so I do a lot of that…The young generation today, many of
the young generation, especially Afro-Americans, they all fi gure they’re gonna be athletes. They all fi gure
they’re gonna be professional football players. They’re gonna be professional basketball players. And that’s
where they concentrate, okay. They see a role model. And they think they’re gonna be one too. All right, the
next thing they see a lot of lawyers. They see a lot of doctors. So, that’s where a lot of them want to concentrate
into those fi elds because for us, they don’t see many of us. And in many cases, we don’t make the money
that those people make, you know, the professional [athletes]. We don’t make that kind of money. There’re
kids today, what they’re thinking about, how many bucks I’m gonna make, what kind of car am I gonna drive?
I go many places to talk today to the kids. The fi rst thing they ask me, “What kind of car you drive?” I say,
“I drive a [Volkswagen] Bug.” “What?” I say, yeah. So, you know, they see role models, and what they’re
looking at is that person out there that’s making big bucks and they fi gure that they’re gonna do it too. And you
know as well as I know how many professional football players you’re gonna have. How many professional
basketball players you’re gonna have. How many really make it, and how many don’t…So, it’s hard as far as
science because they don’t see that many role models.
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