Scientific literacy

The term scientific literacy is related to the ability to make use of the rational and scientific method to explain and understand phenomena, building evidence-based answers to the most different questions of humanity.

Scientific literacy then combines access to the basic concepts of science and the epistemologies (or ways of understanding the world) of thinking scientifically. More than science literacy, taking the ideas of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, scientific literacy is about the possibility of “reading the world;” that is, from the magnifying glass of science, not only accessing, but understanding the planet on which we live. Usually, in science curricula, it is argued that literacy is an objective of Elementary School (the stage that normally serves students between 7 and 14 years of age) and that with this base, students can reach High School (the stage that normally serves students between 15 and 18 years of age) equipped with structuring knowledge and the instruments of science to outline their hypotheses, build experiments, and test their ideas, advancing in the canon of different disciplines, learning new and more complex components.

STEM approach: the central pillar of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow

The STEM approach, central to the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow program, not only stimulates but improves students’ understanding of science doing and thinking. Starting from a problem, the groups build hypotheses, discuss the contributions of society on the subject, design experiments, prototype ideas, and solutions, test the findings and evaluate the results.