MATH EDUCATION AND ACHIEVEMENT
Do American math textbooks waste paper and confuse students? Might textbooks help explain how poorly American students perform on math tests in comparison with students from Japan? A comparison of U.S. and Japanese seventh grade texts by UCSB psychologist Richard Mayer found that Japanese textbooks were only half as long as those used in American junior high schools and that 30% of the page space in American books contained irrelevant material. Mayer's career in cognitive science had not taken him to Japan until he obtained his first Pacific Rim grant, but he has now completed a series of comparative studies on classroom and textbook teaching strategies that provides empirical evidence of some of the most challenging ideas now being promulgated by reformers in math and science education. In a related study, Santa Barbara Education professor Yukari Okamoto, has just begun examining ways in which characteristics of English and Japanese oral and written languages affect the inherent "number sense" that children bring to their first formal encounters with mathematical instruction in school. Her findings will be directly relevant to educators attempting to assess what students do and do not understand about mathematical concepts.
SCIENCE-BASED RESOURCE POLICY
When is biology an applied science? San Diego doctoral candidate Tim Ragen used electronic sensors to track young northern fur seals during previously unstudied deep-sea migrations. Supervised by ocean biologist Paul Dayton and cooperating with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and from Japan, Ragen found that the young seals migrate directly into areas where fishing boats use giant drift nets. His data influenced the revision of international fishery agreements for the northern Pacific which had been stymied by lack of clear evidence for a connection between drift net fisheries and a measured decline in young fur seal populations. Similarly Berkeley geographer Bernard Nietschmann's research in high biodiversity zones along the Pacific coast of Central America, shared by six countries and viewed as a "last frontier" for resource exploitation, provided data that shaped an international agreement to establish regulated regional conservation zones. In another study, Santa Cruz environmentalist Deborah Letourneau's work with scientists and students in Papua New Guinea on the biology of clearcut forests found that native seeds remaining in the soil can germinate and survive if the soil is protected and certain shade timber is introduced. The resulting varied forest ecosystem will be significantly more valuable than monoculture plantations of eucalyptus or acacia, frequently planted after logging in the tropical Pacific.
OVERCOMING CULTURAL BARRIERS IN HEALTH CARE
With strained resources and urgent needs, public health demands clear understanding of cultural and social factors that help and hinder the delivery of services. Tackling the resurgence of tuberculosis and the development of drug resistant bacteria among immigrant communities in Los Angeles, UCLA physician Claire Panosian found the greatest prevalence among those in the United States less than 12 months and is now developing mass media educational materials to alert these people to their risk. A UCLA study headed by professors Harry Kitano and James Lubben compared health conditions and needs among elderly Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in Los Angeles and in urban China, Japan, and Korea to design appropriate service delivery strategies. Determined to bridge the cultural gulf that made Hmong immigrants in California actively hostile to some medical treatment, San Francisco epidemiologist Peter Kunstadter worked with Hmong in Fresno, in refugee camps in Thailand, and in Laos to identify beliefs that make western medicine appear threatening and points at which social interventions facilitate acceptance of treatment. He is holding workshops in Fresno that bring medical personnel and Hmong community leaders together. The nursing and support needs of caretakers for chronically ill children and frail elderly in China and Taiwan have attracted the attention of UCSF researchers Ida Martinson and Anne Davis, who expanded their Chinese nursing colleagues' perspective beyond their hospital base.
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