Lesson 5 Importance of Science Literacy in Elementary Program

MODULE for
MC SCI 101
TEACHING SCIENCE IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES
(BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY)
KRISTINE KAYE D. OCFEMIA

Community College of Manito
It-ba, Manito, Albay
Photo by Needpix.com
LESSON 5
Importance of Science
Literacy in Elementary
Program
2
Page
Science literacy involves the comprehension not just of basic concepts, but just as
important it requires comprehension of the importance of “falsifiability” of scientific theories
and hypotheses, the knowledge that scientific inquiry is value-laden, and an understanding of
the problem-solving nature of scientific inquiry. Science-education strategies should focus on
the more general problem of increasing the science literacy of the general public rather than
the recruitment of future scientists. This approach should foster interdisciplinary cooperation
and reduce competition for limited resources.
In this module, we are going to learn the definition of Science Literacy and explain how
science and literacy teaching in elementary classroom are made mutually beneficial.
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

 Define on your own words what Science Literacy is.
 Explain how science and literacy teaching in the elementary classroom be
made mutually beneficial
 Create Science-specific literacy work that promotes scientific learning
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“A Great Teacher gives
their students Roots and
What is Science Literacy? Wings”
Science/ Scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts

and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs,
and economic productivity. It also includes specific types of abilities.
Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions
derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to
describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena. Scientific literacy entails being able to read
with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social
conversation about the validity of the conclusions. Scientific literacy implies that a person can
identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are
scientifically and technologically informed. A literate citizen should be able to evaluate the
quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it.
Scientific literacy also implies the capacity to pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence
and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately.
Importance of Science Literacy:
Science literacy is important because it provides a context for addressing societal

problems, and because a science-literate populace can better cope with many of its problems
and make intelligent and informed decisions that will affect the quality of their lives and those
of their children.
Science as a Foreign Language
Is Science a Foreign Language?

A lot of times teachers get stuck in their own field and standards that they dismiss other
areas that should be addressed in order for a student to succeed all around. In science you will
hear that it is its own language and that is why people do not understand it. It is true that
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science can be a foreign language at times and it can make it more difficult to understand. So
why would a science teacher not take the time to make sure students are science literate? They
absolutely should teach literacy to students, but the difficult task really is, how do you do it?
We did not learn actual science literacy until we went off to college and was a science
major. Then we had to know how to read, speak, and write it, and yes it is its own language at
times. That is why most teachers took a whole class on the terminology. For an elementary
schooler though, this is not a class they would be interested in unless they somehow knew they
wanted to be in the science field. It would not capture their attention at all. That is the key in
teaching science literacy to students, capturing their attention. Not all students, probably not
even half, want to go into a science field when they grow up or are at all interested in science
unless the lesson includes a hands-on activity and they are applying outside knowledge to what
they are doing in the classroom. Currently we are going over the parts of the body in my
practicum. This is something everyone can connect to just because we all have the same parts.
What makes it interesting though is when students get to hear their heartbeat or find out why
they have different blood types. When students are able to connect the material to themselves
and learn how to apply it to the outside world they become interested. Frey and Fisher (2010)
even suggest that younger students must be motivated to learn because at this developmental
stage schoolwork is in a decline, and teachers tend to assign less-rigorous tasks to appease the
disenchanted students. I do not believe teachers need to step back and not push students to
learn, instead they should be pushing themselves to push the students. Find ways to engage the
students and get them motivated to learn.
Science as Someone else’s Language?

Science as a career attracts people from across the world. But whether researchers
come from Beijing, Berlin, or Philippines, they have to express most of their ideas and findings
in English. Having dominant language can streamline the streamline the process of Science, but
it also creates extra barriers and potential for conflict.
This is also a major concern in the Philippines settings. Gone are the days that almost all
students in elementary are fluent in speaking and understanding English language. Nowadays,
the children are not trained to speak English in their elementary days because of making way
for the Mother tongue subjects. This resulted to difficulty that the students experience when
speaking and understanding the English language. This also affected the mastery of subjects
that uses the English as mode of instruction. One of those subjects is the Science Subject.
Science have its own language and coupled by the medium of instruction that is not
quite familiar with the students, this resulted to low understanding and mastery of the lesson
and concepts.
Supporting Literacy in the Science Classroom

There are a variety of ways to incorporate literacy strategies in science educati on
without sacrifi cing content.
Writt en and spoken language play a signifi cant role in all classes. But if you’re
trained as a science teacher, how do you support literacy development without
losing content ti me for science?
RETHINK LITERACY
Good news: You already teach literacy. Science teachers off er students many
opportuniti es to improve their literacy skills, including:
 Asking students to think critically while reading science reports, news and pop
science, graphs, and documentaries;
 Challenging students to connect multiple sources of media, analyze a source’s
potential bias, or identify an unreliable source; and
 Asking students to write or speak about science findings from a review of research or
their own experiments with an audience in mind.
Components of literacy are already present in the science classroom. The key is to
mindfully support the levels of reading, writi ng, and speaking skills your students
possess, while focusing on content.
READERS BELOW GRADE LEVEL

Some students can discuss the science topics but struggle to access any material
they have to read. There are several ways to address these below-grade-level
readers’ needs.
Engineer a text: Take a grade level piece of text and center it on a page. Create a
column to the left where you pull out and defi ne key vocabulary, and one on the
right where you ask questi ons of the reader. These questi ons can be tailored for
many levels of readers, ranging from supporti ve, fact-based questi ons (helping
students read to fi nd out the key facts) to applicati on and extension questi ons for
your readers above grade level. The result is diff erenti ated instructi on for your
students.
Use technology to expose students to texts: Even if a student is unable to
independently read a text, they can develop grade-level literacy skills by interacti ng
with vocabulary, sentence structures, and content of higher-level texts through
technology. Several devices have the opti on to enable text-to-speech functi ons,
which have the device read the text out loud. Speech-to-text functi ons allow
students to speak what they want to have typed. This functi on requires some
practi ce—don’t ask the student to use it for the fi rst ti me on an assessment.
The Immersive Reader program from Microsoft also reads texts to students. It
includes other enhancements, like syllable recogniti on and the ability to highlight
as you read. It even has parts-of-speech recogniti on to support writi ng.
https://www.google.com/search?q=applying+literacy+strategy+to+science&oq=ap
plying+literacy+strategy+to+science&aqs=chrome..69i57.15717j0j15&sourceid=ch
rome&ie=UTF-8
https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-literacy-science-classroom
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5408/0022-1368-38.5.463?
journalCode=ujge19#:~:text=Science%20literacy%20is%20important
%20because,and%20those%20of%20their%20children.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-is-scientific-literacy-02

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MODULE for

KRISTINE KAYE D. OCFEMIA

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

Science/ Scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts

Importance of Science Literacy:

Science literacy is important because it provides a context for addressing societal

Science as a Foreign Language

Is Science a Foreign Language?

Science as Someone else’s Language?

Supporting Literacy in the Science Classroom

READERS BELOW GRADE LEVEL

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