Scientific literacy, according to the National Science Education Standards (1996) is ‘the knowledge and understanding of concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity”. Scientific literacy gives people the opportunity to ask, find or determine answers to questions from curiosity. It means being able to read and understand articles about science and to engage in social interaction about the validity of the conclusions. Finally, it means that people have the skills to evaluate arguments bases on conclusions and to apply conclusions to the arguments. (NSES, 1996).

Shortages in scientific literacy has led to scientific experiments being so called ‘incompetently designed’. In previous years, Durham City Council’s Dave Ford designed an experiment to test the effects of fish oil tablets or more specifically Omega-3 would boost children’s performance in their GCSE results. Numerous academics however noticed and informed Dave Ford that the trial was designed for ‘no good reason’ and was incompetent. The response to the criticism was alleged to be blatant lies.

The scientific method of the experiment was seen to be designed to produce false positive results. During the experiment, however, saw 2,168 of the 3,000 test subjects back out. Furthermore, it was apparent that in response to the drop outs, Ford identified an equal number of pupils who hadn’t taken the supplement compared to those who had and compared the two. The results that were published from the experiment did not link with the number of test subjects. The experiment was detailed to have created falsified results and only discovered that pupils in school perform better if they work harder and follow school policies.

As previously stated, scientific literacy “is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity.” (Kirshenbaum, 2009). In other words, it means a person can ask and find answers to questions about every day’s experiences. I believe this is important in schools because a child should obviously be able to feel comfortable about asking any question they may be curious about. “A fair test refers to an experiment that is carefully controlled to ensure that the information gathered is reliable.” (n.a, 2017). For example, to teach about fair testing a relay race could be used. This would include two teams of different numbers and obstacles for different levels of ability. This would cause the children involved to think about why what they’re doing isn’t fair and how it can be fixed. This links to scientific literacy because both require full understanding of what is happening and why.

References:

• Goldacre, B. (2008). ‘Dave Ford from Durham Council performs incompetent experiments on children.’ Published in: Bad Science. Available at: http://www.badscience.net/2008/09/dave-ford-from-durham-council-plays-at-being-a-scientist-again/ Accessed: 27/01/17

• What is a fair test?” (n.a, 2017) Available at: https://www.reference.com/education/fair-test-b32435d07a3a4014 (Accessed 06/02/17)

• “What is Science Literacy?” (Kirshenbaum, 2009) Available at: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/03/17/what-is-scientific-literacy/#.WJiAjLaLR8c (Accessed 06/02/17).