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Scientific misinformation and disinformation, proliferating via the internet and social media, are now significant problems. Proposed solutions vary substantially. Here, I describe a set of prospective benchmarks--10 competencies--that seem essential for reorienting science education to address the challenge. They include, first, elements of epistemic motivation, including basic epistemological beliefs about "constructed" knowledge, adopting a posture of respect for empirical evidence, and an understanding of our epistemic dependence on experts. Second, the benchmarks include perspectives and skills in interacting with media sources. These include how to identify experts, how to identify credible gatekeepers, how to recognize deceptive strategies, and how to deal with social networks and technology. Finally, the competencies include self-regulation, such as acknowledging the cognitive dispositions that bias our thinking (especially about information that challenges our pre-existing beliefs) and the counter-balancing role of consensus. I hope that these competency goals can function as a concrete target in guiding discussion of perhaps more complete or more nuanced approaches to the current crisis. With such competencies clearly and explicitly articulated, teachers will be better positioned to develop effective classroom strategies to nurture the relevant competencies.

Argumentation constitutes an important element in nature of science education. However, its virtues and scope can be overstated. Here, we survey in detail the place of argumentation in science education. Our benchmark is the range of epistemic processes relevant to citizens and consumers as they assess the reliability of scientific claims in personal and public decision making. We consider multiple epistemic stages in the development (or ontogeny) of such claims: (a) observation and material investigation; (b) the crafting of concepts through individual cognition; (c) the checks and balances of the scientific community; (d) the challenges of credibility and expertise in a cultural context; and (e) the interpretation of "science in the wild," where authentic scientific claims mingle with imitators and misinformation on the Internet and social media and in public discourse. We conclude that many conventional rationalist assumptions haunt current approaches to argumentation and limit its effectiveness, especially in the implicit goal of achieving intellectual independence for students as autonomous scientific agents. A more fruitful approach, from the perspective of functional scientific literacy, is a Whole Science perspective, which gives full expression to the spectrum of epistemic processes in science and science communication.

Individuals are increasingly relying on social media as their primary source of scientific information. Science education needs to adapt. Nature of science (NOS) education is already widely accepted as essential to scientific literacy and to an informed public. We argue that NOS now needs to also include the NOS communication: its mediation, mechanisms, and manipulation. Namely, students need to learn about the epistemics of communicative practices, both within science (as a model) and in society. After profiling the current media landscape, we consider the implications of recent major studies on science communication for science education in the 21st century. We focus in particular on communicative patterns prominent in social media: algorithms to aggregate news, filter bubbles, echo chambers, spirals of silence, false-consensus effects, fake news, and intentional disinformation. We claim that media literacy is now essential to a complete view of the NOS, or "Whole Science." We portray that new content as an extension of viewing science as a system of specialized experts, with mutual epistemic dependence, and the social and communicative practices that establish trust and credibility.

Research has now demonstrated that students can learn nature of science concepts variously through student-led investigations, contemporary cases, and historical cases. Here we articulate more precisely the merits, deficits, and context of each approach and begin to profile how to integrate them as complementary methods. Emphasis now needs to shift to the needs of practicing teachers and the detailed strategies and modes of assessment that make each method effective and manageable in a classroom and institutional context.

Error in science is a prime occasion to teach the nature of science, especially the central feature of tentativeness. Error types also reflect corresponding methodologies of science, critical for practicing science and (in a context of scientific literacy) analyzing its claims. Effective efforts in teaching about error will ideally be informed by earlier educational perspectives and a schema for inventorying and organizing error types. Approaches using student-directed inquiry have limits, whereas guided-inquiry historical case studies seem appropriate vehicles. On a larger scale, one may also envision a prospective learning progression on successively deeper understandings of error in science. Sample case studies and opportunities for further reading are identified. (Contains 3 tables and 6 footnotes.)

I profile here a prospective method for assessing nature of science (NOS) knowledge, as an alternative to VNOS and similar approaches. Questions about cases in contemporary news and from history probe scientific literacy in context. Scoring targets how "well informed" the analysis is, based on identifying relevant NOS information and interpreting its import appropriately. The assessment shifts focus from declarative statements to functional (or interpretive) analysis. It also entails reframing current NOS characterizations from selective lists of tenets to the multiple dimensions shaping reliability in scientific practice, from the experimental to the social--namely, to Whole Science. This approach underscores the role of reflective student inquiry and historical and contemporary cases in NOS instruction. (Contains 4 tables and 6 footnotes.)

Stephen Brush once asked, "Should the history of science be rated 'X'" Well, times have changed. Now controversy reigns over the role of sociology in the science classroom. Here, I profile several dimensions of the sociology of science and survey recent efforts by philosophers to address its most radical claims. In respecting the opposing poles of this contentious debate, I contend that it is possible to chart a path between the Scylla of scientism and the Charybdis of relativism. Most notably, educators must differentiate between the normative and descriptive elements of the "nature of science"--and teach both. Further, they must go beyond the rhetoric of tentativeness and fallibility in science by describing just when and how individual scientists and/or a scientific community can err--and how they identify and remedy their errors.

Analyzes how educators currently frame historical stories to portray the process of science. Discusses the importance of narratives of error and recovery from error in illustrating the nature of science and its limits. Emphasizes history that conveys the nature of science effectively. (Author/KHR)

The varying inter-relations of scientist Gregor Mendel's thinking and the continuing debate about the nature of his achievements in historical literature are discussed. Acknowledging that secondary sources disagree about Mendel's understanding and contributions, they appeal to Mendel's text as a transparent and exclusive authority.

Ironically, flat-Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change naysayers trust in science. Unfortunately, they trust the wrong science. That conundrum lies at the heart of scientific literacy in an age of well-funded commercial and ideological interests and overwhelming digital information. The core question for the citizen-consumer is not philosophically "why trust science?" (Oreskes 2019) but sociologically "who speaks for science?" Teachers can help students learn how to navigate the treacherous territory of inevitably mediated communication and the vulnerabilities of epistemic dependence. Students need to understand the role of science communication practices (media literacy) and the roles of credibility, expertise and honesty and the deceptive strategies used by imitators of science to seem like credible voices for science., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe author declares no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) 2021.)