Scienceliteracyphilosophy

_________________________SCIENCE LITERACY PHILOSOPHY_________________________ Theresa Schallhorn
I remember when I travelled to Beijing, China a few summers ago while visiting my brother and sister-inlaw how unbelievably difficult it was to communicate. There was a time when my brother and I were riding the subway across town and when we entered the train, all went silent and we heard only whispers. I, personally felt extremely uncomfortable as I could not understand what was being muttered under their breaths. My 6 foot 9 inch brother, on the other hand, started laughing and leaned in telling me that they were talking about how tall both of us were compared to them. This personal reflection parallels scientific literacy in multiple ways. Just like differences in cultural languages across the world, there are also differences in the languages of school subjects. The way that we communicate our thoughts and ideas in English is a bit different from the way we communicate them in Art, Music, Math or Science. We may use poems to describe the sunset in English, a visual representation of the sunset in Art, a mellow and peaceful piece of music in Music, the angles of the sun as it sets in Math and the production of the great colors across the sky in Science. Science literacy refers to the specific language that scientists use to disclose and explain concepts. As scientists, we may use the written word, complete with our own dictionary of vocabulary or graphs and data tables, filled with numbers and units. We can also create models to explain concepts that we cant see with our naked eye. Being able to communicate scientifically means that we are able to dissect a variety of texts, graphs, tables and models and critically think about them in order to make sense of complex topics. As teachers, we are asked to incorporate science literacy as we scaffold our students engagement in activities that help them learn how to generate questions, construct charts and graphs from data, identify patterns, analyze and evaluate information and communicate and defend findings. In my own classroom, I deliberately plan my activities, projects and experiments so that my students are constantly practicing and reflecting on their abilities to use the scientific language. Recently, I implemented a lesson that revolved around science literacy. In my seventh grade science class, we just started learning about extreme weather (i.e. hurricanes) as it relates to global air circulation, ocean currents and the water cycle. I selected a short interview for students to read that was between an interviewer from the television program NOVA and hurricane specialist and analyst Ivor van Heerden. The interview had taken place ten months prior to one of the largest hurricanes to hit the United States had occurred; Hurricane Katrina. The interview revealed prophetic explanations of the damages that could occur if a Category 3 hurricane was to hit Louisiana. The plot twist with this story is that even though von Heerden took this information to the government, no actions were taken in the replacement of weakened levees or other infrastructure parts.
With this activity, students were to do two things. First, they were to communicate their initial reactions to the article. Von Heerden did a phenomenal job of accurately describing the damages that Louisiana could have faced, and knowing what we know now, this is pretty shocking. Second, students were to form an opinion on the debate of whether or not the government should have allocated money for rebuilding the necessary parts before the storm or wait until after the storm hit to assess damages. They were to provide support for their opinion using the reading and other information that was presented in class. Below is a sample of student responses to the above questions: My first reaction to the reading was that I thought the government was stupid to not spend money before the storm. My new side, though, after thinking about it was the government is right to wait til after the storm. I think the government was right because why put so much money into something that might not even happen the money towards the project would all go down the drain. That is why I think the government is right. I always thought that when a hurricane happened, the damage had just happened and nobody would or could do anything about it. When I read this article and learned that these scientists could try to save thousands of lives, I was blown away about this. I would be one of the scientists who would be fighting to get money from the government because these people can save hundreds and even thousands of lives. It is pretty amazing how this man figured that Katrina was going to happen. Even though that there was a chance that Katrina wouldnt happen, it still did. I think that is kind of scary to think of how many people died because of this and the government didnt prevent it. If I was in the situation of deciding what to do, I would say spend the money before. If they would have, peoples lives wouldve been saved, their homes the same and not destructed. I think they should have been precautious because even if Katrina didnt happen, they would have the knowledge for another huge hurricane. In this case, I would side with the scientists. This is because the government could start making a place for victims of the storm. They could also start and gather supplies for victims. Scientists were smarter in their opinions but I understand the government opinions.
This is just one example of the many that use to incorporate science literacy in my lessons. Other strategies that I have used include students Five Minute Silent Read, Texting the Text, Graphing Wednesday, Debates, Technical Tuesday, Buzz Words and more. Each strategy requires students to interact with either texts, data tables, graphs and vocabulary. What is most difficult about implementing and practicing scientific literacy is maintaining consistency. It seems that often times, science literacy falls short on the overall priority list for our classrooms. Often times the amount of reading that students must do is minimal, the variety of readings that students work with is limited and students lack closure with the material as there lacks self-comprehension and selfreflection of work. In order to overcome these issues, I feel that techniques, such as those that I have previously described, need to become inherent in our lessons.

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_SCIENCE LITERACY PHILOSOPHY_ Theresa Schallhorn

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