Importance Of Scientific Literacy

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Scientific literacy has been widely accepted as a central goal of school science education in the 21st century. Scientific literacy has become increasingly prominent in international discussions about the aims and purposes of science education. Scientific literacy plays an important role in human daily life. Many definition have been put forward for scientific literacy. To define the scientific literacy many science educator as well as organization such as National Research Council (NRC) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) draw frameworks and tried to describe the characteristics of scientifically literate individuals (Turiman, P. et al., 2012). Scientific literacy defined as the knowledge and understanding

Only nations whose citizen possess an appropriate level of scientific literacy will be able to competing successfully in international market (Laugksch, R.C., 1999). Science itself may benefit from the formation of greater scientific literacy related to public expectations of science. Scientifically literate public would significantly improve the quality of public decision making. Scientific literacy skills need to be acquired by future generation in order to meet the challenges of globalization due to advancement of information and technology. Student must be broadened to include scientific literacy skills in learning science education that will be required for students to thrive in the future. Students ought to have this ability to apply the knowledge that they have learned to face the challenges of life beyond school. It is a current trend in education where students are able to using real world tools to solve or communicate about real world problem by thinking creatively. In addition students also need to acquire research skills. They have to know how to integrate scientific literacy during learning science. For example students can ask question, get or determine answers from daily experiences (Turiman, P. et al., 2012) and identify the scientific issues whether at local or national level. In summary there thus a

Although the composite sense of scientific literacy has been widely recognize, science education researcher have essentially not measured the concepts in a composite manner. Measure of individual dimensions such as nature of science, attitude towards science and science content knowledge were thus also used and referred to as measures of scientific literacy (Laugksch, R.C., 1999). The dimension of scientific literacy regarding science content knowledge has been of particularly keen interest to science educator as the assessment of students’ conception of various important concepts in science is vital to much of teaching and learning in the science. A number of instrument have been develop to investigate particular aspects of students’ understanding of the nature science. The nature of science is associated with Miller’s third dimension of scientific literacy which is closely allied to science technology society (STS) movement which emphasize a holistic, problem solving approach to science teaching and attempt to deal with current social issues impacting on society (Laugksch, R.C.,