Science Literacy: Get Real!

by Scott Barber

To understand my approach to scientific literacy, you need to understand my path to the classroom.  I graduated from Iowa State University in 1987 and entered the business world.  I returned to college in 1993 to become a teacher.  Between those years I continued to learn in a real-world setting.  I was never assigned a textbook, received a vocabulary sheet, or took a standardized test in the business world.  However, my professional literacy and bank of knowledge were tested daily.  The years I spent outside the classroom have formed my approach to teaching scientific literacy.  The world is changing, and the science content of today might not be the same science content of tomorrow.  Content is important in standards-based education, but the process of striving toward scientific literacy creates a lifelong learner and a scientifically literate adult. 

What is meant by scientific literacy?  According to the National Science Education Standards:

Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena. Scientific literacy entails being able to read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions. Scientific literacy implies that a person can identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed. A literate citizen should be able to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it. Scientific literacy also implies the capacity to pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately.
Reprinted with permission from National Science Education Standards, p. 22, © 1995 by the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

The Event

I try to introduce a science investigation through a real-life event—say, a hurricane. Making science relevant to a student’s life is an important hook in developing scientific literacy.  A common statement made by students to teachers is “Why do we have to know this?”  Adding real-life relevance to standards-based teaching anticipates the question and bonds relevance with literacy.

The Words and Concepts

Once the event has been introduced, the words and concepts necessary for literacy need to be identified and introduced to the students.  Textbooks, published lesson plans, and other educational resources often identify the key words and concepts.  But other resources, such as magazine articles, newspaper articles, podcasts, websites, and television programs, usually do not provide these.  What they do provide, though, is an opportunity for students to create their own key words and concepts lists. Thus, key terms and concepts can be introduced by the teacher and school texts, discovered by the students, or found through a combination of both methods.

So, for example, when studying hurricanes, students might consult these resources:

Print: Textbooks, newspapers, magazines
Internet: Operation: Monster Storms (Jason Project), National Hurricane Center (NOAA), About Hurricanes (NASA), Nova Science Now

And from these resources, students might construct a list of these words and concepts: convection, water cycle, thermal energy, storm surge, eye, eyewall, atmosphere, energy transfer, low pressure, high pressure, fronts.
 

The Understanding

Once the key terms and concepts are introduced, they need to be framed in a manner that students can understand.  From my experience, looking up words in a glossary or using a predetermined definition does not help most students make a thorough or lasting connection with the words and ideas. Students need to create their own meaning or definition in a context that they can understand and relate to.  I use any credible resource available for students to explore the meaning of the key terms and concepts—online resources, print resources, video resources, previous student knowledge, and anything else that would help students.  This means that after the students create their lists, they revisit the resources they culled the words from in the first place to see how they were used and to get the gist of what they mean.

The next step is to get students to actively use the key terms and concepts. I have found that a very good way to do this is to engage students in inquiry-based investigations.  These might require the students to do experiments, data analysis, online gaming, or role playing.  During the process of investigation, students gain added conceptual development of the key terms and concepts.  As students show, grow, and internalize developmental meaning, I challenge them to something called “street talk.”

Making It Real

Street talk is a way for students to share their personal working definitions for the key words and concepts in a way that middle school students talk.  Reciting a definition from a resource does not show understanding.  But successfully putting key words and concepts in a street-talk format shows that students truly understand! 

To continue with our example of hurricanes, here is a standard definition taken from the University of Illinois website (WW2010 Project), followed by a street-talk version:

Hurricanes are tropical cyclones with winds that exceed 64 knots (74 mi/hr) and circulate counter-clockwise about their centers in the Northern Hemisphere (clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere).

Hurricanes are formed from simple complexes of thunderstorms. However, these thunderstorms can only grow to hurricane strength with cooperation from both the ocean and the atmosphere. First of all, the ocean water itself must be warmer than 26.5 degrees Celsius (81°F). The heat and moisture from this warm water is ultimately the source of energy for hurricanes.

Related to having warm ocean water, high relative humidities in the lower and middle troposphere are also required for hurricane development. These high humidities reduce the amount of evaporation in clouds and maximize the latent heat released because there is more precipitation. The concentration of latent heat is critical to driving the system.

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Hurricane formation is kind of like a recipe.  The ocean water has to preheat to at least 81 degrees F.  The heat trapped in the water provides the heat for the hurricane to cook.  The air above the ocean must be humid like in the summer when the air feels warm and sticky/moist.  The heat travels from the ocean to the moist air and is then released (latent heat) into the atmosphere.  If this continues to happen, thunderstorms develop and begin to rotate counterclockwise.  When the spinning storm reaches 74 mph, it’s a hurricane.

Once students have reached the street-talk level, you can decide how you want them to use their newly formed vocabulary.  This is the part I call “making it real.”  Making it real means not only that the students have created a meaning that is real to them but that they have also connected learning to a real-world event.  Here are some ways that I assess making it real:

• During labs and experiments, I record when students successfully “street-talk” the key words and concepts while conducting the lab or experiment.
• In a data analysis investigation, the students must use the key words and concepts in their final report, whether it be written or verbal.
• For role playing and online gaming, students must communicate or demonstrate the key words and concepts.
• I also use traditional testing.

Scientific literacy will last a lifetime, and as teachers, that is our ultimate goal—what we all want our students to achieve. And to keep me on target with helping my students achieve it, I frequently visit the definition of scientific literacy when planning lessons as I weave in the strategy-philosophy formed by experiences in my years outside K–12 education. 

Scott Barber teaches seventh grade science at Roehm Middle School in Berea. He has a B.S. in speech from Iowa State University, an education degree from Baldwin-Wallace College, and a master's from Ashland University. Barber was selected as one of Cleveland's most interesting people in 1999 by Cleveland Magazine and was a 2001 WOW award recipient from the Great Lakes Science Center for his innovative teaching techniques. He was also the 2000 recipient of the NTTI Teacher of the Year. Barber is a National Board Certified teacher, a member of NSTA, and an ORC Ambassador. You can contact him at sbarber@berea.k12.oh.us.

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