[Excerpt] The scientific and mathematical competence of American high school students is generally recognized to be very low. Of those graduating from high echool in 1987, only 45 percent had taken chemistry, only 20 percent had taken physics and only 12 percent had taken pre-calculus and only 6 percent had taken calculus (Educational Testing Service 1990). The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that only 7.5 percent of 17 year old students can "integrate specialized scientific information" (NAEP 1988a p.51) and 6.4 percent "demonstrated the capacity to apply mathematical operations in a variety of problem settings." (NAEP 1988b p. 42)