SCIENCE LITERACY IN THE TEACHING OF LOWER DIVISION SCIENCE: RE-THINKING THE CONTENT OF NON-MAJORS' SCIENCE CLASSES

Many lower division science classes focus excessively on memorization of facts and mastery of information, rather than understanding of scientific process. Many teachers of introductory college science have begun to reorganize their courses to better achieve the goal of making students “science literate.” The Clark Honors College is a liberal arts college within the University of Oregon, and, as such, teaches a small (25 or fewer students) science course for non-science majors, with no specified factual content. This course has, in the past, endeavored to survey science shallowly and expose students to the major ideas of all branches of science. In the light of current thinking about the aims of science education this course has been re-imagined as a course in science literacy, using topics that engage student interest as vectors for teaching students to think like scientists. Two iterations of the course taught in the last year focused on politically “hot” topics: evolution and climate change. Students were given primary and secondary scientific literature to read and called upon to discuss the application of the scientific method in the studies they read about. Students also read popular news articles dealing with political controversies and were called upon to analyze objectively the scientific content of arguments. Finally, students were given the opportunity to discuss the reasons underlying political controversies over these scientific topics and, in the process, to separate objective from subjective arguments. This approach to non-majors’ science had several positive outcomes: Students were highly engaged and interested in the topics and consistently enthusiastic about class discussions. While student understanding was not objectively quantified, their answers to questions of “science literacy” were perceptibly improved by the end of the 10 week course, and their confidence in their own understanding of science was substantially bolstered. Although this approach deprives students of a general survey of scientific knowledge, it provides them with the tools to obtain it for themselves as they need it and to critically analyze scientific claims in their own fields and the popular media.