Scientific Information Literacy for the 21st Century

Science is one of the major human achievements, but recent decades have seen an explosion of poor-quality scientific reports and misleading information about science. Students will learn the threats to quality scientific communication in our time and learn to locate and evaluate varied sources of scientific information. Topics include examining journal articles for biases and expertise, how peer-review often fails, using research databases, evaluating generative AI tools for scientific content, and more. For their major projects, students can choose to focus on a topic in health sciences/medicine or environmental sciences. Students will also gain skills in scientific communications.