Science and society: Reflections on science education sustainability, and the responsibility of scientists

Science and technology have increasingly profound impacts on our daily lives—how and where we learn and work, how we spend our money and our spare time, and how we communicate with each other. Unfortunately, most people have no real understanding of how the technologies they rely on work, how they were developed, and the scientific basis for their development. As demand for a better quality of life and access to the benefits of modern technologies increases globally, we increasingly face the urgent need for developing and implementing sustainable approaches for meeting the needs of societies. To do so, we will need to significantly improve science education and public science literacy globally. Despite low levels of public science literacy and interest in science, math, engineering, and technology (STEM) careers among young people, which together provide evidence for the problems besetting science education, we do have an as-yet untapped resource which can help improve science education and public science literacy—namely, STEM professionals. © Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2012.