What everyone wanted, and what Scripps needed, was certainty ... and that's what we got.

We tell them about Earth science, astronomy, plant science and marine science. But what we don't do is explain what the four basic sciences are and what the building blocks are. We go too broad too early. We don't go in depth enough.... You've got to understand the big picture of what science is and how all the sciences relate to one another. If you don't do that, you'll never get it and you'll never get a real interest in science.

The method we're adopting is we're going to be proactive. I think we've demonstrated that just by being proactive and using other methods of communication, both physically traveling and using the Internet and e-mails, we've been able to establish [links].

That is not going to happen this century unless we get more kids interested in science. We have 39 of the 50 best scientific institutions in the world. But U.S. enrollment is down and foreign enrollment is up. We have to change that if we want to be the innovators of the future.

It's extremely dry. Open up any chemistry book, it's awful. Everybody can do the volcano, everybody can do some of the science experiments where things flash and you get puffs of smoke. That's fun, it's entertaining for the kids, but it really doesn't drive home any of the principles.

The only thing I needed to do to pass the course was to know what the score was of the game the night before.