The development of biological literacy is a continuous endeavor. People do not attain literacy in biology or any other subject and then stop learning. Thus, it is intended that students will use the knowledge and skills obtained in Biology 100 to develop further literacy throughout their lives. At the multidimensional level, students can apply the knowledge they have gained and the skills they have developed to solve real-world problems that may require the integration of information from other disciplines such as sociology, economics, and political science. Curriculum developers and biology instructors provide opportunities for students that help them reach the structural and multidimensional levels of biological literacy.
Students can describe a concept but have a limited understanding of it.
Students recognize personal deficiencies in knowledge of skill, 2. obtain additional knowledge of skills, and 3. apply knowledge of a concept to related subjects 4. and to solve a problem or answer a question. One can think of the unifying principles as branches on a tree that has evolution as its trunk and the facts of biology as its leaves. An understanding of the trunk and branches of the biological tree constitutes structural biological literacy, whereas functional literacy focuses on the leaves alone and when the leaves fall, the facts are forgotten. A student reaches structural biological literacy when he or she understands a subject well enough to explain it to another person in his or her own words. Biologists study living systems.