Building on scientific literacy in evolution towards scientifically responsible Europeans (EuroScitizen)

COST European Cooperation in Science & Technology. COST Action CA17127

The main aim and objective of the Action is to leverage the strengths of diverse stakeholders (evolutionary biologists, education researchers, educators, museum professionals, the media) to foster networking that will stimulate research and best practices to promote scientific literacy in evolution.

WG1: Working Group 1 focuses on “Assessment of attitudes towards evolution and knowledge about evolutionary processes and concepts across Europe” by designing and benchmarking effective methods of gauging the understanding and acceptance of evolution and their relationship, especially in the context of overall scientific literacy. This objective involves both the conceptual review and development of survey and statistical tools, and the proper processing of the resulting data (its transformation, visualization and dissemination). The working group consists of researchers from 28 European countries.

WG2:Formal Education. Curricula analysis: People from WG2 have worked on developing and validating an instrument (FACE) which can be used by future researchers who want to analyze school curricula regarding evolutionary concepts and ideas so that they get comparable results. FACE is currently being used by European researchers in WG2 to provide data regarding the presence of learning goals targeting evolutionary concepts in the compulsory education curricula of their country.