Civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.
What is Civic Scientific Literacy? It is the form of literacy that deals with the level of understanding of basic scientific constructs that an individual would need to access and make sense of information about public policy issues involving science and technology.
At the New School I’m working to improve the scientific literacy of our students by engaging with real-life, capacious and wicked problems. Inspired by my work with SENCER, my students are learning about sustainability, climate change, pollution, emerging infectious disease and other problems through simple projects that they conduct with their class mates.