Promotion of scientific literacy on global warming by process drama

This review is written to highlight specific arguments and ideas about process drama for developing scientific literacy. It provides an overview of issue or theories under consideration in this study; reviews the critical points of current knowledge of variables related to the research topic covering scientific literacy, process drama, humanistic science education and scientific background of global warming.

1. Scientific literacy

Scientific literacy is defined as the knowledge, understanding, and skills required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity in a world shaped by science and technology (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996). The scientifically literate person is, therefore, characterized as a person who is able to comprehend scientific issues in magazines, newspapers and other media; evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source, the methods used to generate it, the arguments based on evidence; and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately. He or she, in addition, can identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed that often involve evidence, quantitative considerations, logical arguments, and uncertainty. Based on literature review, in this study, scientific literacy consists of two elements, conceptual understanding of and engagement in a socio-scientific issue.

Conceptual understanding is the explanation about natural phenomena. It is meaningful for that person. It is an everyday mode of talking and thinking about the phenomenon which is logical, coherent and internally consistent. It may be different the scientific view. Children’s ideas were found robust and persist into adulthood despite formal teaching. Basic steps for conceptual change are suggested; revealing student preconceptions, discussing and evaluating preconception, creating conceptual conflict with those preconceptions, and encouraging and guiding conceptual restructuring (Duit, 1999).

Engagement is the meaningful and sustained involvement of people in an activity. The students engaged in action to tackle an environmental problem when they are actively and authentically involved, motivated, and excited about an environmental issue, process, event or program (Hungerford & Volk, 1990).

Roger Hart (1992) proposed Ladder of Participation, a model of intensity of engagement in environmental education from non-participation to youth assigned and informed; to youth consulted and informed; to adult-initiated, to share decision with youth; to youth and adults share decision-making; and to youth lead and initiate action.

2. Humanistic science education

Humanistic science education is the education for world citizenship. It develops moral reasoning integrated with values, human concerns, and scientific reasoning. It also promote personal fulfillment, self-actualization, interpersonal relations, experiential learning. This kind of science education employs induction, socialization, or enculturation into students’ local, national, and global communities that are increasingly shaped by science and technology. Humanistic science education focuses on the development of the whole and sees cognition as inseparable from affect. It addresses physical development/kinesthetic skills, artistic development/drama and theater skills, mental development/thinking skills, personal development/intra-personal skills, and social development/interpersonal skills.

3. Process drama

Student decisions about socio-scientific issues do not depend entirely on science knowledge but also on political, ethical, and economic factors. Science drama can be employed as a teaching strategy to humanize science education (Nickerson, 2009). By its nature, the creative world in a drama affords the chance for first-hand interactive learning experiences and the resulting understandings that can be directly transferable to the real world. It is a way in which students make sense of the world around them; using dramatic play to practice life (Bowell & Heap, 2001).

Science drama is a broad term linking science and drama and can encompass many types of drama activities such as physical theatre, personification, scripted drama, role-play, animation, film/video. It is a way to share the wonders of science with a wide audience; it can enrich and inform both its audience and its creators and performers. Science drama consists of the story and liveliness of its performance (Yoon, 2006). The story is events, characters, and settings arranged in sequence. It enables people’s emotional participation. The story is also viewed as a mode of knowledge and thinking. Science drama should be based on sound scientific ideas including some science terminology, or well-known scientists as a cast. The liveliness is from the present tense and action of participants. Liveliness reflects their understanding in a way that is meaningful to them. Science drama offers room for students to talk, express, adapt, and evaluate their science knowledge and thought by its liveliness in a non-authoritative learning environment. In short, science drama gives a human nature to its authorized scientific knowledge by emotional and active participation. There are many ways to categorize science drama; for example, with-scripts/without-scripts; theme science (science concept /science history /science character); explorative (process) /semi-structured/structured (product), etc. The drama in this project is characterized as a with-scripts, science content-based, process drama.

Ødegaard, (2003) categorized science drama in to explorative (process), semi-structured (role-play), and structured. Structured science dramas are mainly teacher-initiated and presentational. The scripts are written and provided by teachers and students read or act the scripts. In the semi-structured drama, the teachers provide a role description, and context. The students then improvise according to their role. Explorative science drama, on the other hand, is student-initiated and experiential (Butler, 1989; Duveen & Solomon, 1994; Pantidos, Spathi, & Vitoratos, 2001; Solomon, 2002). The teachers do not select a play and then lead the participants through the proper skill acquisition necessary to perform that play. Rather, the students write their scripts and act. The play is by and for the students.

To help students produce a drama, the teachers must prepare students to meet the requirement of drama production (Bowell & Heap, 2001). To produce a drama, the students need; 1) personal and social ability, 2) performance skills, 3) knowledge and understanding about theatrical ideas and concepts, and 4) theme or the main idea of the play (Lewis & Rainer, 2005). The personal and social ability consists of interactive skills; teamwork, negotiation and problem solving as well as the ability to contribute ideas and critical evaluation to the process of making drama. Performance skills are needed in order to make students’ ideas concrete including physical and vocal skills as well as technical abilities relating to design, stage, management and theater technology. Knowledge and understanding of theoretical ideas and concepts is the framework underpinning students’ ability to make drama or present it to an audience. They need to develop a wide range of knowledge and understanding of the form and language of theater. The theme is the abstract issues and feelings that grow out of the dramatic action. It is a message delivered to an audience. To develop this element (Bowell & Heap, 2001), teachers should make children curious about knowledge and assist with and motivate research skills and actively show the place of personal enquiry through the involvement of all the sense and though a total body experience in the acquisition of knowledge. This may be called student research. These requirements are considered in the design and have become the basic elements of student preparation session in the drama workshop of this project which will be elaborated in method section.

4. The science of global warming

The concept of global warming comprises three subordinated concepts related to one another namely the causes, process, and consequences of global warming. Their scientific conception is explained below.

4.1 The causes of global warming

The heat is absorbed by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. This keeps the Earth in a temperature range that allows life to flourish. These gases are known greenhouse gases. There are a number of green house gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N20), methane (CH4), water vapor, sulfur hexafluoride, and CFCs, etc. Earth's most abundant greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and CFCs. Water vapor, the, most prevalent powerful greenhouse gas holding onto 2/3 of the heat trapped by all greenhouse gases, is also a consequence of global warming. Atmospheric CO2 is produced by a number of sources including burning of fossil fuels by cars, electricity generating power plants, airplanes and deforestation. Methane is derived from rice paddies, bovine flatulence, bacteria in bogs, and fossil fuel production. Nitrous oxide (N2O) or laughing gas is produced either naturally in ocean forest or by humans in nylon and nitric acid production, the use of fertilizers in agriculture, and cars with catalytic converters

4.2 Process of global warming: greenhouse effect

The Earth receives energy from the sun in the form of visible light. Most of this energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere since it is transparent to visible light. The energy hits and warms up the earth. It then radiates back to the atmosphere in the infrared range or heat. The energy is, this time, trapped since the greenhouse gases are not transparent to infrared. They absorb thermal infrared radiation. As a result of its warmth, the atmosphere also radiates thermal infrared downwards to the Earth’s surface. This keeps the Earth’s temperature steadily heated. This mechanism is fundamentally different from the mechanism of an actual greenhouse which isolates air inside the structure so that heat is not lost by convection. Anthropogenic global warming is a global mean temperature anomaly trend that results from an enhanced greenhouse effect mainly due to human-produced increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

4.3 Consequences of global warming

Increasing global temperatures are causing a broad range of changes: sea levels are rising; land ice in the poles is melting; and the amounts and patterns of precipitation are changing. Moreover, there is an increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and tornadoes. Other effects of global warming include lower agricultural yields, further glacial retreat and disappearance, reduced summer stream flows, and species extinctions. In addition, diseases like malaria are returning into areas where they had been eliminated earlier.