Science on Literacy

Critical Thinking and Critical Literacy

One of the main objectives of The Ontario Curriculum as a whole, is to guide students towards becoming individuals that are able to effectively entertain ideas, to be critical of those ideas, and to evaluate whether an idea is fair, reasonable, and sound. Critical thinking as a skill set, is not one that we are born with, rather, it is comparable to a muscle that needs to be flexed repeatedly to become stronger. Those who have conditioned their minds in this way are said to be critically literate.

As the curriculum states, students need to be able to interpret what they are reading, be able to identify biases, and determine the reason(s) for the bias. The skills a student would require so that they will be successful as critical thinkers are the ability to understand and interpret the material they are exposed to, the ability to formulate relevant questions, and the ability to detect bias when they encounter it. For this reason, students require opportunities to work and strengthen these abilities. We offer these opportunities in each course offered in Science.

Lastly, logical thinking, critical analysis, and good reasoning skills are most often synonymous with science, and as such are an integrated component of science education.