What is scientific Literacy?

At its core, scientific literacy is preparing students to face the world within a scientific context. This may sound vague but it is in fact one of the most simplistic ideas. That is, possessing an awareness of your surroundings. Literate scientists do not necessarily remember the minutia of their academic upbringing. What is important is understanding how to think scientifically. Questioning information they receive and applying it to the scientific method, developing a natural curiosity for the natural world, and contributing to the scientific canon are all hallmarks of the literate scientist. In an age where technology has provided so many opportunities for scientific discovery and engagement we as a society are painfully unaware of the mechanics of our lives. Why should I learn Newtons laws when I can simply go online and look them up and produce them at my leisure? This is the danger we face in the modern era. Never have we existed in society with so much information and so few people equipped to use it. One such example of this is our perception of global warming. Often times, the general public fancies themselves experts on the topic of global warming. General public opinion sees global warming singularly as a widespread warming of our planet due to the build-up of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Reduced to this simple definition, global warming becomes an easily observable phenomenon. If it gets warmer, it must be because of global warming. Familiar news images of polar bears on shrinking ice flows and crops dying in areas of extreme temperature all play to our connection between the topic and real world applicability. However, the scientifically literate individual sees that this simple definition is not all inclusive. Global warming is a systemic issue that affects our planet at the largest possible scale. From weather patterns to breeding seasons of invasive species, our understanding of the impact global warming has on our planet is growing each day. But how do we inspire the next generation of scientifically literate individuals? This question has been the subject of much state and national legislation and millions of dollars in research. Ultimately, this inspiration occurs in classrooms across America. In order for students to possess a scientific construct in their minds they must first be humbled by the natural world. One of the most effective ways to introduce students to scientific thinking is inquiry based learning. In my classroom, I use inquiry based learning almost exclusively. With each unit, I explore some phenomena or case study related to the unit in general. This could be modeling a court room for mitosis, a mission to mars for photosynthesis, or a man inexplicably fermenting alcohol in his gut for cellular respiration. Once the students have been introduced to this phenomenon and are sufficiently curious I provide the students with the tools they need to explain this phenomenon. Throughout the unit I assess the students understanding and make sure the classroom as a whole is progressing at an appropriate rate. This assessment ultimately ends with the students explaining what/how/why they observed happened actually happened. There are several obstacles in producing a scientifically literate individual. Of these, perhaps some of the biggest obstacles in producing a scientifically literate individual are those of inspiring interest, assessing progress, and transitioning between units. Inspiring interest takes a great deal of patience coupled with a lot of trial and error. In order for the students to learn through inquiry one must find interesting and broad phenomena. This can be

challenging but practice teaching a unit in this manner ultimately gives the teacher a lot of insight as to what students are interested in. Finding examples that students can connect to in their own lives is crucial for students to be inspired. A second challenge in producing a scientifically literate individual is assessing students. When you paint a unit with such a broad stroke it is important to understand going into a unit what specific earmarks you want the students to understand at the end and strongly direct learning to those earmarks. If this is not done successfully a student may get lost in unimportant details of a unit. Finally, a well formed transition between units is crucial. If this step is done incorrectly a student may not understand the interrelatedness of scientific practices. In order to succeed in this avenue it is crucial that a teacher scaffolds the most important underlying topics from previous units into new units. Tool use such as summary charts and displaying work from previous units is helpful in keeping the students minds limber with material from previous units.