What Does Science Literacy Look Like? How People Learn From Popular Science News Articles Online

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Contexts for Learning: A Focus on Media and After-School Programs

Abstract

For over a century, science educators have motivated their discipline by arguing that learning science equips young people with knowledge and skills they will draw on as adults, enabling them to act as informed citizens. Unfortunately, the link between a child's formal science education and an adult's critical engagement and science literacy remains rhetorical. This paper presents a multi-method study and analysis of adults finding, reading, and making sense of popular science articles, in order to provide empirical descriptions of what science literacy looks like in everyday life.

Author

• Pryce Davis, Northwestern University