Rethinking K-6 Scientific literacy: A Case Study of Using Science Books as Tool to Cultivate a Fundamental Sense of Scientific Literacy

As the discourse of scientific literacy has broadly summed up the goals of science education in the current decade, this study attempts to question how we contextualize appropriate interpretations and feasible approaches to scientific literacy in K-6 science education. With respect to the complex praxis of scientific knowledge and practice, this study emphasizes the participatory framework of scientific literacy which interweaves children's everyday experiences and science learning. This study also concerns children's abilities to understand and enact scientific enterprises (i.e., children's fundamental sense of scientific literacy). As a way of developing K-6 scientific literacy, this study investigates how using science books can broaden the scope of children's understandings of science in life connections and promote a fundamental sense of scientific literacy through talking, reading, and writing skills in Grade two science classrooms in Canada. Second graders were engaged in learning "sound" for five weeks. During science lessons, children's talks were recorded and their writings were collected for data interpretation. This research finds that using science books can encourage children to become engaged in communicative activities such as talking, reading, and writing in science; furthermore, using science books develops children's inquiry skills. These findings open a further discussion on scientific literacy at the K-6 levels.