Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 224) supporting the designation of Pi Day, and for other purposes. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members…
Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 224) supporting the designation of Pi Day, and for other purposes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on House Resolution 224, the resolution now under consideration.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 224, supporting the designation of Pi Day. This Saturday is March 14. The Greek letter pi-- the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter--is rounded to 3.14.
I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage our Nation's students of all ages, schools, and teachers, to observe Pi Day with fun math and science activities and events.
This is a lighthearted event with serious goals. Math and science underpin our Nation's economic competitiveness and national security. By engaging in fun math and science activities from a young age, we are setting our students on a path towards science and math literacy, and opening the door to rewards and promising careers.
Research has shown that most students who are not comfortable with math and science by junior high remain intimidated or uninterested throughout their education careers.
On Pi Day, we want students to have fun with math and science. Second-graders could calculate the area of a pizza pie at a Pi Day pizza party. Sixth graders could learn about Newton's Laws of Motion from a game of boccie ball. Tenth-graders could learn about the hyperbolic functions by shooting Nerf rockets in the park.
I leave the specifics to the schools, but my advice is to go and have some fun. Let the students see firsthand how math and science is fun and relevant. Let them see that it does apply to them. Let them discover that they really do like math and they really do like science.
This is a lighthearted event, but the underlying problems we have in America are serious. The President of the United States stood in this room a few weeks ago and told us that ``the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.''
According to the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science, a survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics, American children in the fourth and eighth grades were outperformed by students in other countries, including Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, England, South Korea, Latvia, and Japan. Other students have been making improvements since the 1995 TIMSS, but they still are not achieving their potential. It doesn't matter to them as individuals but, boy, does it matter to our Nation as a whole.
The 2005 National Academics Report, ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' looked at our economic competitiveness and showed us a blank and bleak future--a stagnating U.S. economy, an ill-equipped educational system, and the U.S. losing its place as a scientific world leader.
The recommendations contained in the ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'' report were meant to pull us off the path we were on. They were signed into law in 2007 as part of the America COMPETES Act, and fell basically into three categories: Investments in basic research; innovation as the path toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil; and improving science, technology, engineering, and math education.
Our students' education, especially in science and math, will be a key component of our national economic competitiveness. We need to ensure not only that the Nation produces the top scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, but that every student is prepared for the high-paying technical jobs of the 21st century. We need the engineers that will invent the next new things; we need the manufacturers to design it, and an educated workforce to produce it. We cannot, and would not want to, compete globally on wages alone. We need to operate at a much higher level in this country.
Given the current economic crisis, our economic competitiveness is more important than ever before. We have been trying to create jobs immediately, which we need to do, absolutely; but we also need to look down the road. If we do not take action to strengthen our Nation's economic competitiveness now, including improving science and math education, we could create jobs now, only to lose them in the future to foreign competition.
We need to make sure that our children are prepared, and a strong foundation in math and science education is an essential part of that preparation. One of the best ways we can prepare our students is by encouraging their interest in math and science. So I am asking our Nation's students and teachers, for all of our sake, to go out and have fun around Pi Day.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Obviously, the gentleman from Georgia is a good friend and a neighbor. Each of us recognizes the need to train the young minds who will be the entrepreneurs, the inventors, those who will be bringing to the table new inventions that will help America's economy not only be competitive, but America's economy be the one that achieves and perhaps even brings this world out of what we see today as an economic recession.
Years ago, in the 1970s, we established legislation on the national level that brought to rural areas in my congressional district and the gentleman from Georgia's congressional district special education, where we literally focused on young minds that were maybe not as capable of reaching the higher achievements, or they may not ever reach college. But some of the instructions that we gave them, some of the special attention we gave through special education has actually presented some of those individuals the opportunity where some have attended college. But it has also given them an opportunity to be competitive in our economy and to be a part of our society. We must do the same thing for the best and brightest as well. It is my hope that, as we engage in K-12, that we continue to focus on science, math, and technology, and to challenge the bright young minds that we have not been challenging in the past.
We have been fortunate in this country through our higher educational system, which is, in my opinion and as scored by many throughout the world, the best higher educational system in the world. It is a merit- based system. In many of the countries throughout the world, their K-12 is also merit-based, and we have been getting some of those best and brightest from some of the K-12 educational systems to come to our colleges and retain them here in our economy, and they have been a part of America's economic growth.
We are losing those students today. We cannot depend on other countries' best and brightest. We have got to be sure that we train our best and brightest. And by challenging our teachers, our school systems, and youngsters to become involved in this fun day could maybe encourage them to realize they can be competitive and become the entrepreneurs and inventors of the future for America.
It is my privilege to manage the bill today, and certainly to manage it with my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Broun).
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
