Scientific literacy is the ability to use the scientific process of logical deduction in everyday life. This has made it very important in modern society ever since the 16th century. As Hurd (1997) states, important figures throughout history such as Thomas Jefferson, James Wilkinson and Herbert Spencer have advocated for an education that propagates scientific literacy as an important building block of society. However, there is a massive debate regarding the medium this propagation should take place. There are two sides to the debate, the first being the teachers who use typical teaching mechanisms to advocate scientific literacy while the other side are the teachers who prefer the unconventional instead (Balraj & Pandian, 2010). Textbooks and proprietary media CDs are considered …show more content…
These students are often considered inferior as compared to the textbook authors (Adendorff & Parkinson, 2004). The authors are perceived this way because they are considered more knowledgeable and are meant to educate the students. Welch (1987) asserts that this makes certain textbooks inaccessible as they intimidate these students. Readers of popular science texts, by contrast, are considered superior to the writers. The readers are considered the authority because they have the resources to research the topics covered in any popular science text and can have open discussions with the writers (Cooter & Pumfrey, 1994). Hence, students easily absorb this information as they feel it is more engaging than textbooks (Creech & Hale, 2006). The information that these students absorb also allow them to gain an understanding of the larger picture on scientific literacy. The connections that these popular science texts make with the real world allow students to observe and learn. Grant and Lapp (2011) advocate that this will lead the students to make relations of their own, cementing the idea of scientific literacy in their