What makes a kid like science? It isn’t information or government edict, advanced courses, or religion. Yes, a promise of a good job helps kids like me who grew up middle class. but it can’t be all it is, because there are times when science is routine, boring, and demands repetition, because some of the joy of science is being able to predict.

One of my favorite exercises in high school was the bug collection, which had been done for eons. I’m not sure it’s done anymore but I remember just being so fascinated with catching the bugs and classifying them.  I needed to add a twist so future chemist me had this thought that instead of sticking the bugs on pins and putting the pins on a piece of Styrofoam or cardboard, I incased them in plastic. Each bug was set in transparent resin. Giving them a category and finding their scientific name was a whole new language, and an interesting one at that. I remember one kid getting in trouble for turning in an old collection, one his brother had done. The evidence? He had a cicada in his collection that didn’t emerge in the year we were supposed to be catching our bugs. Science triumphed. Why would you ever want to cheat in science?

What’s missing in the STEM education discussion these days is curiosity, and the sense of wonder about and the respect for the whole vast natural world as compared to the engineered world of humans. In fact, respect for scientists themselves is missing from our political landscape in Iowa.

I was just about to put this old book in the Little Free Library near the park. I paused because I wanted to read it one more time. I don’t think enough people understand what it takes to really, really be a scientist and to persist in it. I thought I might, for a post, just go through a few of the entries in that old book and see what scientists had to say about what brought them to science.

For many, it was being in nature itself. One scientist recalled being at a summer camp in Wisconsin and becoming fascinated with amoebas. Looking at the stars was the key for another. One scientist grew up in the California mountains, surrounded by nature. As an aside, Iowa has very few public lands to allow for exploring nature. The state has severely cut back the DNR. One strike against us.

The DNR budget has been cut back for years. Our state parks have fallen into disrepair. This isn’t a great way to encourage science.

According to the book, playing with batteries and wires in a family shed and constructing tic-tac-toe machines gave another his start. Some were from families of scientists, others had parents who never finished high school. There wasn’t a standard path to science. “Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and and others artisans. There are poets–scientists and philosopher–scientists and even a few mystics. … and most people who are in fact scientists could easily have been something else instead.”

The scientists highlighted their curiosity,  physical discomfort when there was incomprehension and the ability to be both free and skeptical.

The scientists interviewed pointed to a few factors which helped them along the way—financial assistance and autonomy of thought. Neither of these things will the average kid get from a right-wing authoritarian. What are we getting from our state education department?

In the science homework that I’m seeing in the schools, there’s a whole lot about evidence. What’s the answer? How do you know? And that’s fine. Science is evidence based. But there’s a whole swath of it that’s missing.

Iowa has gotten overly practical about educating kids for jobs, especially ones the state—and no doubt the parents– want them to have. These are often STEM jobs. Manufacturers are even hitting up grade school kids, telling them to work for them when they grow up. But in some cases, I’ve heard students express doubts about a life making poisons and making people fat.

Likewise, long ago the now Iowa Governor came to visit my private school science department to tell us how much she likes science and private schools. I am seeing through a glass dimly here but I didn’t like her because she didn’t get science and was not there to listen to what we had to say.

Now, she acts as if she’s done miracles with STEM education. She might even be the next Secretary of Education, all while ignoring doctors and scientists. In other words, she ignores the informed opinions that scientists with autonomy of thought have given her. This is not anything to model if you want to promote science. She is a Trump supporter and Trump said that listening to scientists is something “only a fool would do.” Instead, you have to listen to the money.

Few people on the Iowa STEM council are working scientists, especially sparse are the natural sciences and basic sciences such as chemistry and biology. I’ve seen some of the curriculum and it has a heavy emphasis on design and engineering. And of course, there are corporate partners and a focus on jobs. It should be called a sTEM Council with a lower-case s. Current science focuses on methodology which many older scientists point out, can be boring. And I really, truly worry about a future where the only people paying for science are people that are making money from it. In the past, the government and universities have been drivers in basic science, the foundation of scientific discovery.

Instead, politicians publicly bash scientists. This in turn causes a public distrust, especially among Republican voters. It’s unlikely that Iowa’s Republicans will look at the evidence. They will instead, create a science-hostile climate for the foreseeable future, making a mockery of STEM education.