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The Importance Of Science In High School Science

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Language and literacy play a large part in in high school science, although that is not always immediately apparent. High school science builds the foundation for scientific literacy later in life and throughout college education. In science there are many new discoveries and it is an important aspect of adulthood to be able to read articles and understand them, especially when they are about scientific breakthroughs. Another important characteristic of understanding science is being able to understand the technical terms. You can read every word of a science textbook but if you have no idea what the words mean then you cannot grasp the concepts. The different ways I can assist students in developing disciplinary knowledge and habits of mind through language and literacy include developing vocabulary, building the necessary background experiences, promoting scientific comprehension, and encouraging questioning. The first step in developing disciplinary knowledge is understanding the vocabulary of that subject. As with all content areas, science has a language of its own. Some words may be found in common speech but take on a different meaning, while other words are specifically designed for the scientific subject at hand. Many of the words function as concepts, making it more difficult for students to memorize without knowing the entire story behind a word. For example, the word nucleus seems to just be a label on a diagram, but it actually is a crucial part of the cell

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