Scientific literacy
Introduction and audience
When talk about science, perhaps majority of us think it is less relative with real life. However, as society developed, science encompassed us everywhere. This situation forces everyone to acquire the ability to learn and understand science. Some may think that, scientific literacy is what a scientist should have and nothing about normal people, however it is just too narrow. Look around the surroundings of us, everything is conned with science. Also, we encounter science in our normal life as well. Therefore, the ability to acquire and understand science is necessary and important, which is called scientific literacy. Scientific literacy is the foundation of science and technology
How could we acquire science knowledge? First of all, we should look back at literacy. Kendall and Young discussed, “While literacy most often denotes the skills of reading and writing, it also connotes a standard or quality of cultural capital in the modern, western nation, manifested, perhaps most visibly, in its educational institutions and in other social institutions as well.” (K&Y,336). Also, “Literacy has been recast productively as an individual’s ways of using written language.”(K&Y, 342) Reading is how we get knowledge of literacy and then they reorganize knowledge thoughts and through their writing. Therefore, We say that reading and writing is the foundation of literacy. Similar to literacy, reading and writing is how people get to know science knowledge as well.
Normally, there are two types of reading. One is newspaper and magazine, which is the important way of acquiring science information. Newspaper and journal, which collect all lately science information, highly adapt the changed trend in society. The other type is professional book such as textbooks. These books are focus on scientific research achievements, science observations, experiment reports and so on. Reading professional books would be more profound and systematic to understand science. When choosing books, we should base on our own conditions and needs and select the appropriate books. Therefore, we could develop scientific literate skill.
Writing