Scientific Literacy: Another Look at Its Historical and Contemporary Meanings and Its Relationship to Science Education Reform
Synopsis
DeBoer introduces his article by discussing the ever-changing meaning of the term Scientific Literacy, a term that first came into light in the late 1950s. He believes that due to the "nine separate but distinct goals of education" that the term "scientific literacy" has become too specific, but that educators do not truly understand its meaning. Therefore, with a historical look at scientific literacy, the term needs to have a broader meaning.
In the early to mid 20th century, scientist such as Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Charles
Lyell, Michael Faraday, John Tyndall, and Charles Eliot began to publicly speak of the importance of science within early education. Their views centered around their early knowledge of the quickly growing dominance of science and technology. These scientists also wanted to push the education system to a more independent method of teaching, which you would find through the teachings of inquiry-based science lessons. In the early years of teaching science developers spent much of their time making the science education "relevant", when it should have been focused more on the natural world's affect on our daily lives.
After World War II, people started to realize the significance of science and the risks that they may come from the products of science. Therefore, education changed in order to make sure that people felt more comfortable with the basic understandings of science and what it is that scientists study. This is really when people began to realized the importance of science and technology in national security. This risk was ever-more clear when Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union, yet at the same time science education also showed a lot of promise. These events also sparked the understanding that jobs in the science and technology fields were critical. Science committees began to express the importance of literacy in science, because they wanted to make sure that those studying science as a profession were not the only ones who understood what was going on in the world.
The term Scientific Literacy continued to change to less emphasis on technology and more emphasis on environmental surroundings. From there, it changed slightly to the interconnectedness of science processes and society. In the 1990's, science literacy became strongly focused on the scientific method where students were posed a problem and had to ask and answer questions regarding the topic.
DeBoer, G. (2000). Scientific literacy: Another look at its historical and contemporary meanings and its relationship to science education reform. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Retrieved from http://web.nmsu.edu/~susanbro/eced440/docs/scientific_literacy_another_look.pdf
Reflection
This article was exceptionally interesting to me, because I had never actually thought about the origin of the term scientific literacy or that what was being taught in science classes every changed. Obviously, I understood that new discoveries would be made throughout the years, and that those would be later embedded into the science standards. It was interesting to see the ways in which terminology change for the definition of scientific literacy changed and the concepts being taught in science changed with what was going on in the world. For example, when Sputnik was launched science began to become more technology based, but when people were afraid of the "risks" science began to help people feel more comfortable by allowing them to understand the technology. Yet, the core of science has stayed the same from the beginning- it is inquiry based. Science should be a subject that allows people to ask questions and find answers using evidence. It is more than memorizing facts, it is experiencing the content and allowing the students to be independent.
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