QUANTITATIVE VS. MATHEMATICAL LITERACY AS ILLUSTRATED BY GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

Literacy is the defining characteristic of an educated (literate) person (p. 9, “Mathematics and Democracy”[MaD], http://www.maa.org/Ql/mathanddemocracy.html). The National Numeracy Network (NNN), an education-focused 501(c)(3) corporation forming a network of individuals, institutions (including the GSA) and corporations united by a common goal of quantitative literacy [QL] for all citizens, envisions “a society in which all citizens possess the power and habit of mind to search out quantitative information, critique it, reflect upon it, and apply it in their public, personal and professional lives” (http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~nnn/NNNVisionMission.html). QL “stresses the use of mathematical and logical tools to solve common problems” (whereas for some) “mathematical literacy [ML]… stresses the traditional tools and vocabulary of mathematics” (MaD, p. 17). Increasingly, geologists must be mathematically literate to be competent in the workplace. Increasingly, geologists, like all citizens, must be quantitatively literate to be informed and discerning citizens.

“Teaching Quantitative Skills in the Geosciences” http://serc.carleto.edu/quantskills, which is part of a the Digital Library of Earth Science Education (DLESE), aggregates teaching tips, classroom activities, student resources and topical discussions, because “quantitative skills are an essential tool for both the geoscientist and the citizen” (from the Quantskills home page). To construct metadata for the Quantskills portal and as part of their series of workshops on quantitative skills in geoscience education, the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) has surveyed geoscience educators on what skills to include. Comparison of these lists with those generated by the broader QL community (e.g., NNN, MaD) underscores the hugely overlapping yet different sets of components of QL (“skills for life”) and ML (“skills for science”). ML is neither sufficient nor necessary for QL.

Geoscience education is obliged to teach the union of the two sets of skills: QL skills in introductory service courses and ML skills in majors courses.