Science education is on the decline in the United States, and a BYU professor and his students are trying to change that.

Each year more and more students test below proficient levels in both science and math, and student interest in these subjects continues to fall, said Gary Booth, BYU professor of plant and wildlife sciences. Truth be told, he said, young U.S. students spend more time watching TV than studying math and science.

"It's just absolutely frightening," Booth said. "We used to be the world's leader in science education - now we're falling further and further behind."

Booth is not the only one disturbed by this trend. In 2001 a special program called Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) was established under the National Science Foundation to get more students interested and engaged in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Since that time the program has served to help reform the way these subjects are taught in schools from kindergarten through graduate school, and Booth is getting his students involved.

"We're one of about 20 universities that have been involved in this and they really like what we're doing at BYU," Booth said.

In fact, the program's directors like what BYU is doing so much that last month Booth and four of his students were invited to present research projects in Washington, D.C., to educators, administrators and congressmen during a Capitol Hill poster session and reception, which was the culminating event of the program's biannual Washington Symposium on April 15.

Undergraduate and graduate students Mark Goodman, Kate Morley, Hillary Roney and Chris Capua accompanied Booth to the event, where each presented research projects representing anywhere from one to two years of work. Their research covered a range of topics from Capua's study of the use of local sagebrush as a chemotherapy drug to Goodman's study of a North American beetle's food preferences and methods of food detection.

Capua explained the program in these words:

"SENCER is an organization that is trying to change the way that science and math is being taught by mentoring the students more," Capua said. "Like doing hands on experiences where they're not just learning from a book. They go out into the field and they'll do biology-type service projects or some type of project and then they bring that back into the classroom."

In line with the program's goals, the research presented by these students at the symposium will be taken and applied in Booth's Biology 100 courses this fall.

Booth, who has been involved with the program for six years, models his classes around its ideals, Roney said. And he has seen promising results.

"We've seen improvement in retention of learning," Booth said. "And [the students] are able to use the strategies they learn in the classroom under the SENCER model to solve societal problems."

Though Booth has been actively involved in the program and applying its principles in his classrooms for some time now, this is the first time his undergraduate students have been invited to present their research.

"It's probably been in my 35-year experience at BYU the single most important scientific endeavor I've done to improve my teaching," Booth said.