Teaching to Question

The first chapter of our textbook brought up a point I had never thought about before. The text spoke about creating scientifically literate citizens, not just students. Teaching young students, it almost feels strange to realize that what they learn in class will be carried with them throughout their life, even after their academic career has ended. Although, as I though about the idea of what it means to be a "scientifically literate" citizen, I realized that much of what I learned as a young student still influenced everything from my current viewpoints and even my college major. For example, were it not for my first grade teacher, I may have never fully realized how incredible of a tool my writing can be in my life; if it weren't for my sixth grade social studies teacher, I may not be as aware of my impact on my environment as I am today; and if it weren't for my eighth grade Spanish teacher, I would not be so inspired to have the opportunity to teach students. 

The idea of being scientifically literate as a citizen made me think about the issue of global warming. While global warming is an accepted fact by many people, it is important that students and citizens learn not to take everything they hear as fact. By encouraging students to think, question, and research or experiment as scientists do, they can carry that into their lives outside of the classroom. This means that they will learn to question information presented to them as either fact or fiction, do their research, and make their own informed decision on the topic. 

The word cloud I included at the top of this post included many of the words that I thought should be associated with science, in and out of the classroom. "Informed" and "knowledge" are two of the words that seemed to associate themselves with the idea of a scientifically literate citizen as was described earlier. As citizens, students should keep themselves informed and be knowledgeable about the world and whats going on around them.