Growing human populations place increasing demands on our planet, resulting in an array of challenges with both scientific and non-scientific dimensions. These challenges are collectively known as socio-scientific issues (SSIs). It is essential to understand how students learn to use values to reason about SSIs, particularly when dealing with…

Methods traditionally used to teach and train in STEM fields are being used to educate for careers in homeland security, Wall Street investments, and financial planning. An example of this trend is the increasing number of courses offered at institutions of higher education, such as financial engineering, computational finance, and risk analytics.…

The aim of this paper is to examine the importance of contextualization of Nature of Science (NOS) within the Socioscientific Issues (SSI) framework, because of the importance to science education. The emphasis on advancing scientific literacy is contingent upon a robust understanding and appreciation of NOS, as well as the acquisition of…

Nature of science (NOS) is a key component of scientific literacy, so science teacher education on NOS is critical to ensure students' scientific literacy. According to mainstream NOS literature, explicit and reflective interventions are recommended to effectively teach NOS. This paper presents an experience for the initial education of secondary…

In this study, two different learning approaches (the Toulmin model of argumentation and whole class discussion technique) to the training of primary school teachers in Turkey were tested over socio-scientific issues. On the one hand, we identified how prospective teachers experienced a change of mind on these issues before and after the training,…

Despite efforts to increase teaching of biotechnology worldwide, there are concerns that public literacy of genetic technologies remains insufficient. Improved education strategies are expected to empower individuals to make informed decisions about biotechnology. To evaluate the teaching and learning of this complex topic, qualitative assessment…

Preparing students to achieve the lofty goal of functional scientific literacy entails addressing the normative and non-normative facets of socioscientific issues (SSI) such as scientific processes, the nature of science (NOS) and diverse sociocultural perspectives. SSI instructional approaches have demonstrated some efficacy for promoting…

Socioscientific issues (SSIs) are used to guide science instruction by presenting scientific real-world problems as multifaceted, consisting of social as well as scientific components that must be considered when constructing solutions to the issues. Using SSIs in classrooms can support students in developing scientific literacy by enhancing their…

Functional scientific literacy demands an informed citizenry capable of negotiating controversial socioscientific issues (SSI). Perspective taking is critical to SSI implementation as it enables understanding of the diverse cognitive and emotional perspectives of others. Science teacher educators must therefore facilitate teachers' promotion of…

This research studies the critical thinking skills of six teenagers in their final years of high school. It looks at the way those students use a set of cognitive skills in order to analyze scientific and pseudoscientific information available in online news articles. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six students chosen according to…

The ubiquitous of STEM education initiatives in recent years has created a bandwagon that has moved at nearly light speed. The impulse of the science education community and policy-makers is to grab hold for dear life or be marginalized from subsequent discussions about the necessity and consequences of using STEM initiatives to prepare and inform…

Carbon cycling is a key natural system that requires robust science literacy to understand how and why climate change is occurring. Studies show that students tend to compartmentalize carbon movement within plants and animals and are challenged to make sense of how carbon cycles on a global scale. Studies also show that students hold faulty models…

The main aim of this research was to measure 10th and 12th grade students' biological conceptual understanding and competences through their upper secondary school studies. Data collection started at the beginning of the upper secondary school biology studies in the 10th grade. The same students participated in this research when they were in the…

Argument skills play a crucial role in fostering students' scientific literacy. Students who possess such skills can employ reason and evidence to make decisions. This classroom action research was aimed at investigating the best practices for teaching chemistry to promote argument skills through socioscientific issues (SSI). The participants were…

The current study aims to explore how Thai preservice biology teachers make decisions upon and informally reason about two culture-based socioscientific issues, which are different yet contextually related. Participants included 46 fourth-year preservice biology teachers (12 males and 34 females) who completed a written questionnaire asking about…