The Minister for Education and Science learned first hand yesterday of the dangers of science during her visit to the BA Festival of Science at Trinity College Dublin.
She climbed inside an oversized model showing how atoms connect to form a sphere, but it gave way, gently spilling her on the ground as press cameras snapped.
Undaunted, Ms Hanafin escaped from the encircling molecule to praise the festival and the contribution it made to public understanding of science. "It is important to bring science to the public and the schools," she said yesterday.
This was particularly true in light of the falling numbers of students willing to take science and engineering subjects at second- and third-level, she added. While it was a problem for Ireland, other countries including the UK and US were experiencing similar difficulties. "It is an international problem," the minister said.
The Government had introduced two measures in support of this, including the new primary curriculum and the fact that the Junior Cert next year would include 30 mandatory experiments, she said.
Ms Hanafin said she was also taking submissions from schools seeking funds to upgrade science and technology rooms. She repeated the Government's position that funding would not be available for lab assistants in schools. "What I want to do is invest in the teachers themselves rather than in lab assistants."
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