1.2.4: Science Literacy
- Page ID
- 261321
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Science Literacy
Science literacy refers to having a basic understanding of science for use in everyday decision making. According to Emily L. Howell and Dominique Brossard, science literacy includes three components:
- understanding how science is produced and how science relates to society
- understanding how science information appears and moves through media systems
- understanding how people interpret science information (Howell & Brossard, 2021).
Science Literature
Science literature includes everything from books to technical reports, to scholarly articles in specialized journals, to popular articles. Primary sources are especially important because they are written by scientists who have conducted the research they are reporting on. Secondary sources draw from this primary research and include articles published in magazines such as Scientific American or newspapers such as the New York Times. Popular articles like these are meant to make the complex and/or technical language of science understandable for non-scientists.
Sources
Howell, E.L. & Brossard, D. (2021) (Mis)informed about what? What it means to be a science-literate citizen in a digital world, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 118(15), e1912436117. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912436117
Image: A representation of the dimensions of literacy necessary for science literacy, across the schematic lifecycle of science information in society. by Howell & Brossard.