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Science | Environment | Health pp 147–173Cite as

A Win-Win Situation for Health and Science Education: Seeing Through the Lens of a New Framework Model of Health Literacy

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Abstract

Health is a “megatrend.” Nevertheless, the role of health and health education in science education has been less important than the role of environmental education. This is a reflection of a cultural-historical constellation in health and health promotion, as will be discussed in this chapter. The emergence of the concept of health literacy offers a promising approach for newly addressing this relationship. To this aim, a framework model for health literacy is presented. It shows explicitly that health literacy is inherently knowledge-based and thus points out a strong link between scientific literacy and health literacy. Indeed, a win-win situation exists between these two fields that is yet to be fully exploited. Several concrete examples demonstrate how the systematic analysis of health issues through the model may reveal the potential benefits of including health issues in science education. It will also be underlined that health literacy refers not only to the field of good health in its narrowest sense but also to the field of diseases and to medicine, which opens up a whole range of topics that are fascinating and relevant to students. A concrete example of a teaching unit will be presented along with a discussion of the need for institutional efforts to develop and spread such examples of best practice. To this end, two vignettes created by other authors have been included in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    kidsINNscience is a collaborative SICA project funded under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union. Participating countries are Austria, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Duration: November 2009 to July 2013. For more information, see www.kidsinnscience.eu. Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Union.

  2. 2.

    The selection had to be made amongst innovative practices originating from the other partner countries, i.e. Switzerland could not choose this innovative practice; one partner country made no preselection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Education, University of Zurich, Beckenhofstrasse 31, CH 8006, Zurich, Switzerland

    Albert Zeyer

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  1. Albert Zeyer
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Correspondence to Albert Zeyer .

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  1. Insitute of Education, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Albert Zeyer  & Regula Kyburz-Graber  & 

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Zeyer, A. (2012). A Win-Win Situation for Health and Science Education: Seeing Through the Lens of a New Framework Model of Health Literacy. In: Zeyer, A., Kyburz-Graber, R. (eds) Science | Environment | Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3949-1_9

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