Prime Minister's Awards for teaching Excellence

Scientific literacy

A politician once made a speech in which he said that dioxins were the most poisonous things on Earth. Then his advisors spent the next few days correcting the statement. They explained that the politician was merely trying to draw attention to the long-term effects of dioxins, that he did not mean to say that they were more poisonous than chlorine, arsenic, lead, strychnine or plutonium.

Many science teachers saw this unfortunate incident as further evidence of a worrying trend: in our increasingly scientific and technological society, only specialists really understand scientific issues. Politicians, journalists, lawyers and other non-science professionals often have little or no grasp of how science works, and this lack of knowledge clouds their ability to make judgments about science and technology issues.

In an attempt to stem this tide of ignorance, many teachers have made it one of their key goals to give students who will not be going on to careers in science a good grounding in the subject.

Science, Technology and Society (STS), a course curriculum that focuses on scientific literacy for students who are not interested in becoming scientists, is offered at many schools in western Canada. John O'Connor from Vancouver, Michael Dzwiniel from Edmonton and Hans van Kessel from Calgary all teach STS and share some of their teaching methods in this section.