Scientific literacy

Scientific literacy encompasses written, numerical, and digital literacy as they pertain to understanding science, its methodology, observations, and theories.

Definition

According to the United States National Center for Education Statistics, "scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity".

The scientifically literate person possesses the capability to:

• understand experiment and reasoning as well as basic scientific facts and their meaning
• ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences
• describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena
• read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions
• identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed
• evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it
• pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately

History

During the Sputnik era, the primary goal of science education was to train more scientists and Nobel laureates to be ready for the next Manhattan Project. By contrast, scientific literacy is now taken to mean that everyone should have a working knowledge of science and its role in society. The shift occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the publication of "Science for All Americans" and "Benchmarks for Science Literacy" .

Science literacy meant that science is for everyone, not just the best and brightest who make it through the educational sieve. Science literacy is a right of every person, and element of citizenship, makes people well-rounded, responsible members of society, helps average people to improve and enrich their lives, and make better decisions.

Initial definitions of science literacy included elaborations of the actual content that people should understand, and this content often followed somewhat traditional lines (biology, chemistry, physics). Earth science was somewhat narrowly defined as expanded geological processes. In the decade after those initial documents, ocean scientists and educators revised the notion of science literacy to include more contemporary, systems-oriented views of the natural world, leading to Ocean Literacy, Climate, Earth Science, etc. This shift ensures that educators' views of science literacy stay in sync with the directions and advances of real science in the real world.

Types

The interdependence of humans and our natural environment is at the heart of scientific literacy in the Earth systems. As defined by nationwide consensus among scientists and educators, this literacy has two key parts. First, a literate person is defined, in language that echoes the above definition. Second, a set of concepts are listed, organized into six to nine big ideas or essential principles. This defining process was undertaken first for Ocean literacy, then for the Great Lakes, estuaries, the atmosphere, and climate. Earth science literacy is one of the types of literacy defined for Earth systems; the qualities of an Earth science literate person are representative of the qualities for all the Earth system literacy definitions.

An Earth-science-literate person:

• understands the fundamental concepts of Earth’s many systems
• knows how to find and assess scientifically credible information about Earth
• communicates about Earth science in a meaningful way
• is able to make informed and responsible decisions regarding Earth and its resources

All types of literacy in Earth systems have a definition like the above. Ocean literacy is further defined as "understanding our impact on the ocean and the ocean's impact on us". Similarly, the climate literacy website includes a guiding principle for decision making; "humans can take action to reduce climate change and its impacts". Each type of Earth systems literacy then defines the concepts students should understand upon graduation from high school. Current educational efforts in Earth systems literacy tend to focus more on the scientific concepts than on the decision-making aspect of literacy, but environmental action remains as a stated goal.

The theme of science in a socially-relevant context appears in many discussions of scientific literacy. Ideas that turn up in the life sciences include an allusion to Ecological literacy, the "well-being of earth". Robin Wright, a writer for Cell Biology Education (CBE), laments "will [undergraduates'] misunderstandings or lack of knowledge about science imperil our democratic way of life and national security?" A discussion of physics literacy includes energy use, ozone depletion and global warming. The mission statement of the Chemistry Literacy Project includes environmental and social justice. Technological literacy is defined in a three dimensional coordinate space; on the knowledge axis, it is noted that technology can be risky, and that it "reflects the values and culture of society". Energy Literacy boasts several websites, including one associated with climate literacy and two advocacy organizations.

Attitudes as part of scientific literacy

Attitudes about science can have a significant effect on scientific literacy. In education theory, understanding of content lies in the cognitive domain, while attitudes lie in the affective domain. Thus, negative attitudes, such as fear of science, can act as an affective filter and an impediment to comprehension and future learning goals. Studies of college students' attitudes about learning physics suggest that these attitudes may be divided into categories of real world connections, personal connections, conceptual connections, student effort and problem solving.

The decision making aspect of science literacy suggests further attitudes about the state of the world, one's responsibility for its well-being and one's sense of empowerment to make a difference. These attitudes may be important measures of science literacy, as described in the case of Ocean literacy.

Promoting and measuring

Proponents of scientific literacy tend to focus on what is learned by the time a student graduates from high school. Science literacy has always been an important element of the standards movement in education. All science literacy documents have been drafted with the explicit intent of influencing educational standards, as a means to drive curriculum, teaching, assessment, and ultimately, learning nationwide.

Programs to promote scientific literacy among students abound, including several programs sponsored by technology companies, as well as quiz bowls and science fairs. A partial list of such programs includes

• Global Challenge Award
• National Ocean Sciences Bowl
• Action Bioscience

Some organizations have attempted to compare the scientific literacy of adults in different countries; these studies tend to find that scientific literacy in the United States is not measurably different from the OECD average.

University educators are attempting to develop reliable instruments to measure scientific literacy, and the use of concept inventories is increasing in the fields of physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology and earth science.

See also

• Ecological literacy

Further reading

Some of the books on scientific literacy include the following:

• Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil, Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
• Rodger W. Bybee, Achieving Scientific Literacy: From Purposes to Practices
• Wolff-Michael Roth, Rethinking Scientific Literacy