What does it mean to be scientifically literate?

For Brock Department of Biological Sciences Senior Lab Instructor and biologist Stephanie Martin, scientific literacy is the “gradual transformation of curiosity and wonder into research and knowledge.” It involves critical thinking, reasoning, debate, testing and understanding science as a social process.

Martin is one of several Brock employees encouraging the University community to get involved as Science Literacy Week is celebrated across Canada Sept. 17 to 23.

Science Librarian Ian Gordon, with the James A. Gibson Library, encourages the Brock community to learn more about science literacy by participating in activities listed on the Science Literacy Week hub, reflecting on the importance of being scientifically literate in lectures, seminars and labs, watching Neil deGrasse Tyson’s short video on the subject, and taking a science literacy quiz.

Other resources to better understand science literacy include: What does Scientific Literacy Really Mean?; The Two Questions that Determine your Scientific Literacy; and Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences (2016).

“Knowing scientific facts is not enough; to be scientifically literate means that one can marshal one’s critical faculties to assess various claims and communicate our understanding to others,” says Brock Assistant Professor of Physics Santo D’Agostino.

“In this way, scientific discourse can be used to assist society in making progress and mitigating harm.”