The daily newspaper includes thousands of words to attract interest.
Television news adds pictures and color, but requires accompanying spoken words to be enlightening.
Increasingly, headlines, news stories, telecasts, magazine articles, and instruction manuals use a vocabulary of scientific terms and concepts, often assuming that most readers or viewers will understand them. This section looks at the level of public understanding of science and technology concepts. A n understanding of a basic set of scientific concepts is an important prerequisite for understanding discussions of science and technology, and for participating in the process of formulating science and technology policy. While the range of possible scientific terms or concepts is large, it is possible to identify a sample of items that concern the composition of matter, the nature of the universe, the basic processes that have shaped our planet, and the basic biology that supports life. A set of nine knowledge items can be used to estimate the level of scientific construct understanding in the United States over the last decade.