Integration of information and scientific literacy: promoting literacy in undergraduates

The Association of College and Research Libraries recommends incorporating information literacy (IL) skills across university and college curricula, for the goal of developing information literate graduates. Congruent with this goal, the Departments of Biological Sciences and Information Science developed an integrated IL and scientific literacy (SL) exercise for use in a first-year biology course. Students were provided the opportunity to access, retrieve, analyze, and evaluate primary scientific literature. By the completion of this project, student responses improved concerning knowledge and relevance of IL and SL skills. This project exposes students to IL and SL early in their undergraduate experience, preparing them for future academic advancement.     

科学素养与人文素养的比较研究

科学素养与人文素养,是当前教育界比较热门的两个词汇.二者在内容与培养方式上,既有相似和联系,也有天然存在的区别.本文就此做一比较,以抛砖引玉.     

Theorizing scientific literacy in the wild

The purpose of this review paper is to contribute to the effort of rethinking scientific literacy in a form that is appropriate for describing and theorizing its occurrence “in the wild,” that is, in the everyday world that we share with others (as opposed to testing situations in classrooms and laboratories). Consistent with our commitment to practice, we exemplify relevant theories of everyday cognition with a case study of scientific literacy in the wild. Accordingly, we conceive scientific literacy as situated, distributed, and dynamic. We use this case study as a touchstone for reviewing the literature on scientific literacy as it has been developed over the past 50 years. Our review shows that sociocultural and cultural-historical activity theoretic models of knowing account for scientific literacy in the wild better than other theories. If the purpose of science education is to produce a scientifically literate citizenry, the question now can be asked what these models propose to frame school science and the possible trajectories that might lead to scientific literacy in the wild.     

Conceptions of literacy in primary and secondary school teachers

Recently, teachers have been described as lacking an organised and consistent understanding of how children acquire literacy. Arguments about falling standards have been aired in the media, and links drawn between methods currently in favour in UK schools, and an apparent failure of children to acquire ‘basic skills'. Proposals have now been made by the Department for Education which give greater prominence to more structured, skill-based primary teaching which, it is claimed, will raise standards and better prepare children to meet the demands they face as they move into secondary school. This study analyses teachers’ conceptual maps of literacy teaching as the preliminary phase of a research programme aimed at describing and enhancing pupils’ functional use of literacy across the curriculum. The analysis is based on a four-quadrant model of adult-child proximation. Using a questionnaire format, important similarities and contrasts were found between the views of primary and secondary teachers. However, the study does reveal that teachers have complex models of literacy which underpin their work and do not adhere to simplistic, uni-dimensional methods.     

Discourse and the new didactics of scientific literacy

This study examines ways in which students’ experiences of a culturally‐sensitive curriculum may contribute to their developing sense of ethnic identity. It uses a narrative‐inquiry approach to explore students’ experiences of the interaction of culture and curriculum in a Canadian inner‐city, middle‐school context. It considers ways in which the curriculum may be interpreted as the intersection of the students’ home and school cultures. Teachers, administrators, and other members of the school community made efforts to be accepting of the diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds that students brought to the school. However, examination of students’ experiences of school curriculum events and activities revealed ways in which balancing affiliation to their home cultures while at the same time abiding by expectations of their teachers and peers in their school context could be difficult. The stories highlight ways in which curriculum activities and events may contribute to shaping the ethnic identity of students in ways not anticipated by teachers, administrators, and policy‐makers.     

化学课程中学生科学素养的培养

化学课程改革的总目标是培养学生的科学素养。本文阐述了科学素养的概念，科学素养提出的现实意义和价值取向，以及培养学生科学素养的课程目标体系；还介绍了高考指挥棒对培养学生科学素养的影响以及化学教师在课堂教学中改变传统的教育教学模式，培养学生科学素养的做法。     

化学教育--培养科学素养的重要途径

通过分析科学素养的含义和构成要素对培养全面发展的人的重要性，探讨了依托化学学科特色、化学教学模式优化、化学教学技术现代化对培养学生科学素养的作用，阐明了构建培养科学素养的化学教学模式的新理念和实现这一模式的手段。     

Text genre as a factor in the formation of scientific literacy

Learning using primary literature may be a way of developing a capacity for scientific ways of thinking among students. Since reading research articles is a difficult task for novices, we examined the possible benefits of learning using primary literature versus secondary literature, particularly with respect to their influence on the creation and formation of scientific literacy. We report on a comparison between four groups of high school students, each with differing degrees of prior knowledge in biology, who read a domain‐related text written in either the scientific research article genre (adapted primary literature) or the popular‐scientific genre (secondary literature). Although there was no significant difference in the students' ability to summarize the main ideas of each text, indicating that there was no eminent distinction in their content, we found that students who read adapted primary literature demonstrated better inquiry skills, whereas secondary literature readers comprehended the text better and demonstrated less negative attitudes toward the reading task. Since the scientific content of the two texts was essentially identical, we suggest that the differences in students' performances stem from the structure of the text, dictated by its genre. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 403–428, 2005     

Reading and writing to learn science: Achieving scientific literacy

A key step in helping students to achieve scientific literacy is to ensure that each school's curriculum supports students' efforts to learn science meaningfully. Educational researchers play a vital role in this step by providing teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and policy makers with information about the creation of a curriculum that supports scientific literacy. In a scientific literacy curriculum, reading and writing can serve as dynamic vehicles for learning science meaningfully. The task of educational researchers is to show how reading and writing can be used most effectively to support science learning. Much of what is done now in schools is based on teacher intuition—good intuition—but intuition nonetheless. What is needed is school-based research to validate and build upon these intuitions. This article is intended to stimulate research on reading and writing to learn science.     

PISA and scientific literacy: similarities and differences between the nordic countries

In this paper we have set out to search for similarities and differences between the Nordic countries concerning patterns of competencies defined as scientific literacy in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. The first part focuses on gender differences concerning the two types of competencies, understanding of scientific concepts versus skills in scientific reasoning, based on analyses of sum scores of groups of items. The second part focuses on differences and similarities between countries based on item‐by‐item analyses. Correlations between each Nordic country (as well as the Nordic group as a whole) and every other country have been used to look for a Nordic pattern. In the last part cluster analysis has been used to see how countries establish clusters and whether these clusters represent meaningful groups in a geographical, cultural or political context.     

In the maw of the Ouroboros: an analysis of scientific literacy and democracy

This paper explores the concept of scientific literacy through its relation to democracy and citizenship. Scientific literacy has received international attention in the twenty-first century as demonstrated by the Programme for International Student Assessment survey of 2006. It is no longer just a concept but has become a stated and testable outcome in the science education research community. This paper problematizes the ‘marriage’ between scientific literacy and democracy, particularly the idea that scientific literacy is a presupposed necessity to proper citizenship and awareness of the role of science in modern society. A perusal of the science education literature can provide a history of scientific literacy, as it exists as a research category. Through Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the Dogmatic Image of Thought and its relation to a Spinozist understanding of individuation/Becoming, it is argued that scientific literacy is not a recent invention and is problematic in its relation to democracy. This article is thus intended to act more as vehicle to move, stimulate and dramatize thought and potentially reconceptualise scientific literacy, than a comprehensive historical analysis. The concept of scientific literacy has undergone specific transformations in the last two centuries and has been enacted in different manifestations throughout modernity. Here the analysis draws upon Deleuze’s reading of Michel Foucault and the notion of the Diagram related to Foucault’s oeuvre, and is specifically using Foucault’s notion of rationalities as actualized threads or clusters of discourse. The obvious link between science and democracy is an effect of specific rationalities within the epistemological field of science, rather than intrinsic, essential characteristics of science or scientific literacy. There is nothing intrinsic in its function for democracy. Through a case study of the work of Charles W. Eliot and Herbert Spencer and the modern enactment of scientific literacy in contemporary science education, this paper shows the cultural and historical contingencies on which the relation between scientific literacy and democracy has been constructed through a rationality this article calls the Man of Science. The mythical Ouroboros will be used as a Fresh Image of Thought to explore the movements and folds within the discursive formation of Scientific Literacy, the rationality of the Man of Science, and their relation to democracy.     

The scientist as Cracker-Barrel Philosopher: Implications for the concept of scientific literacy

This study aims to identify an internally consistent and readily teachable philosophical approach to the nature and practice of science. The primary sources are anecdotal material and oral reflections prepared for the popular media by and about an eminent contemporary scientist, the late physicist Richard Feynman. Examples of real people working on technological problems can provide a useful foil to the customary study of great men in the history of science, yet both of these approaches can have serious drawbacks. Feynman's anecdotal reflections provide an excellent middle ground case study: a pure scientist, yet with a personal background anchored in practical problems, who combines the traditional credentials of authority with an endearing humanity. There are striking similarities between the account of the nature of science, technology, and good teaching implied by Feynman's musings and that expressed more abstractly in the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science report,Science for All Americans.     

青少年科学素质的基本要素

科学素质是青少年综合素质的重要组成部分。依据我国《全民科学素质行动计划纲要》的精神,青少年的科学素质主要应包括科学知识、科学精神、科学方法和科学能力。了解青少年科学素质的基本要素,有助于青少年科学素质的提升和科学教育目标的实现。     

新课程下高中化学教师的科学素养

普通高中课程改革即将全面展开,作为课程改革实施者的教师,其科学素养的高低将直接影响学生科学素养的培养与提高．新课程下高中化学教师应具备崇高的科学品质、先进的科学方法、广博的科学知识和突出的科学实践能力等科学素养．