EVER since 1982, when the American penny (one-cent piece) ceased being minted from brass and started being made instead from zinc with a thin coating of copper, eighth-graders at some of the country's more inspired schools have been given a nifty little experiment in electrochemistry to do for homework. Your correspondent's 13-year-old came home recently with goggles and instructions to find the amounts of copper and zinc in a modern penny. While in class, each kid had first carefully weighed three such coins on a scientific balance. After that, the rest was up to them (and their dads).



The experiment is designed to test the pupils' knowledge of the galvanic series, and the science that explains how corrosion occurs. The series lists metals according to their resistance to electrochemical reaction—with the “noblest” (eg, palladium, platinum and gold) at the top of the rankings, and the most reactive or “basest” (eg, beryllium, zinc and magnesium) at the bottom. Copper comes 11 places above zinc in the table. Thus, when the two metals share an electrolyte, the zinc (being much the more reactive) will dissolve into the solution long before the copper. In a similar way, zinc anodes attached to the hulls of ships protect the vessels' steel plates from rusting away by being sacrificed instead.



The first step in the experiment is to file away a small section of the edge from each of the coins to expose the zinc core within. With the filed pennies in a plastic cup, the next task is to pour a few ounces of hydrochloric acid over them. That can be easier said than done. Fortunately, hardware stores sell hydrochloric acid by the gallon under the guise of “muriatic acid” for cleaning stonework and lowering the alkalinity of swimming pools. Your correspondent keeps a supply in a garden shed under lock and key.



Half a day later, with no more bubbles coming from the pennies submerged in hydrochloric acid, the reaction can be neutralised with a solution of sodium bicarbonate (“baking soda”), and the coins left to soak overnight in fresh water. The next morning, any remaining crud inside the hollow pennies—with their zinc cores dissolved away—can be removed under a tap with the help of a toothpick. Back at school, the hollow pennies are then weighed to determine the amount of zinc removed and the weight of the copper remaining. Result: a daughter who thought science boring now thinks it cool and wants to know more.



Unfortunately, too many young Americans drop science at the earliest opportunity. It is a tough and exacting discipline. Ever willing to oblige, schools and colleges offer smorgasbords of far easier options. Why sweat the detail and put in long hours when you can get by with something less demanding. For too many young Americans, sad to say, that has become a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with life's little challenges.



Not so elsewhere. In its latest report on the scholastic performance of 15-year-olds around the world, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) placed America 17th in science and 25th in mathematics among the organisation's 34 member countries. Top in science was Finland, followed by Japan and South Korea. But when a further 31 non-OECD countries and other entities that participated in the study were included, America slipped to 23rd in science and 31st in mathematics out of 65 all told. Participating for the first time, China swept the board, displacing Finland as number one in science and South Korea as top in mathematics.



Admittedly, China was represented in the 2009 PISA study (published last month) by just Shanghai, the country's largest city and the one with the best schools. But the message it sent was clear. With their historical respect for knowledge, Confucian-based societies—whether Chinese, Korean or Japanese—set a blistering pace academically.



And that feeds directly through to the economy. In both America and Europe, whole industries have been decimated by the sheer numeracy, articulateness and technical competence of workers in Japan and South Korea—two countries with a combined population little more than half of America's. Imagine the impact, then, of a technological powerhouse the size of China—with a population four and a half times America's—when the calibre of young people that Shanghai is producing today becomes the national norm.



What can America do to prepare itself for the coming onslaught on jobs, way of life, national self-confidence and individual happiness? It is surely not what Amy Chua prescribes in her recent book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” (The Penguin Press, 237pp, $25.95). In certain ethnic Chinese communities like San Marino (the highest achieving school district in California), the relentless bullying, disparaging, take-no-prisoners approach to parenting can get results, but ultimately at terrible cost to those concerned, both personally and professionally. It is just too alien for a country with the history, culture, compassion and social norms of America.



The Chua approach achieves high scholastic scores in San Marino largely because the community is small, ethnically homogeneous and has less than 1% of its households classified as low-income (compared with 67% in neighbouring Los Angeles). Even then, San Marino gets only average return on the money spent annually ($8,000) per pupil. Other Californian districts do almost as well, despite having to cater for far greater income and racial diversity.



The 2011 federal budget President Obama proposed last February included a 40% increase for science and mathematics education. Along with that, an initiative aimed at harnessing $250m in tax-free donations from businesses and foundations was established to train 10,000 new science, mathematics and engineering teachers over the coming five years, and to provide on-the-job training for 100,000 others.



And yet it is clear that school districts are not using the money they already receive anywhere near as efficiently as they could. After adjusting for inflation, education spending per pupil in America has tripled over the past four decades. Meanwhile, scholastic achievement has remained essentially flat. Apart from tiny Luxembourg, America spends more per child than any of the other OECD country—around $13,500 annually compared with an average of $7,800.



Perhaps, then, focusing on “return on education investment” might not be such a bad place to start. Earlier this week, the Centre for American Progress (CAP), a research and education institute based in Washington, DC, published a year-long study on the productivity of the country's 9,000 or so public school districts. The centre has to be commended especially for the interactive map it has made available. Using it, taxpayers can see how well, or otherwise, their local education authorities are spending their money—and what results they are achieving in the process. (Move to Nebraska for the best public education in the country.) According to the CAP study, low productivity costs America's public school system $175 billion a year—money that could be used to improve science and mathematics teaching no end.



It is not so much that America needs lots more top-flight scientists and engineers. Some argue it already has more than enough to fill all the vacancies in industry, research and academe as it is. Unquestionably, the country's powerful graduate schools and research institutes suck in the best brains from around the world—many of whom go on to build careers and companies within the United States.



What America needs urgently, though, is a new sort of competency in scientific education that prepares individuals for careers that have little directly to do with science. More than anything else, scientific literacy helps people think clearly and cope more adroitly with the technical underpinnings of modern life. That is why your correspondent is cheered by the kind of science teaching that makes his daughter want to know more about how nature works and why. He just wishes there were a lot more hollow-penny experiments around—and that many more schools were inspired enough to teach such things.