Not all societies have a written language, but that doesn’t stop discoveries. Even without reading and writing, indigenous peoples have acquired knowledge about the natural world. In addition, many non-literate communities engage in scientific activities, such as citizen science through programs like CyberTracker.

In modern societies, literacy is a form of empowerment: people who are literate have more personal, social, economic, and political freedom than illiterate people. Numeracy is math literacy, the ability to understand and use mathematics, which is also equated with success. Together, reading, writing, and arithmetic were referred to as the three Rs (the phonetics of which is ironic only to those with basic literacy).

The requirements of literacy continue to increase. As technology rapidly changes, so do the skills necessary to achieve the same competencies that had been conferred by those lucky enough to use the simple three Rs.

For example, media literacy. A media-literate person knows how to read, write, and interpret personal biases in media, identify propaganda, and discern misinformation. Media literacy education has core principles. Somewhat similarly, a climate-literate person is fluent in the core principles of climate science. There are also explicit principles for conservation literacy.

For contentious issues, there seems to be a need for specialized literacy for meaningful public discourse and engagement in the issue. Citizen science participation promotes STEM learning, which can include many types of science literacy skills.

What is genetic literacy? I don’t see an explicit set of genetic literacy principles on the Genetic Literacy Project website. I’ve seen some steps towards this with assessment instruments for undergraduates and the public which could be useful as part of assessing genetic literacy gains from citizen science participation.

This week’s SciStarter campaign focuses on citizen science projects which involve methods in the field of genetics. In this week’s #CitSciChat, a Twitter discussion about citizen science sponsored by SciStarter, we’ll discuss scientific discoveries of these projects, as well as their broader impacts such as genetic literacy. Join the discussion on Wednesday Jan 20 at 2pm EDT (corresponds to 6pm GMT, and Thursday 6am AEDT, 8am NZDT). If you do not use Twitter, you can follow the conversation here. I’m @CoopSciScoop, founder and moderator of #CitSciChat, and this week’s guest panelists include:

-Jacob Cox from the Genetics and Smell Chemistry Project (@EdTech_RSC) in which families of participants receive scented cotton balls and record what they identify each odor to be.

-Sean Ryan from the Pieris Project (@PierisProject) in which people across the globe collect cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae) in pursuit of understanding how the species has adapted to local environments as it spread to almost every continent within the last two centuries.

-Nicole Garneau (@yopearlscigirl) at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with the Genetics of Taste Lab where people investigate the influence of genes and mouth microbes on the ability to taste sweetness.

-Karen James (@kejames) with DNA barcoding project, and faculty at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory.

The complexity and invisibility of genetic processes, the distrust arising when there are profit motives, and creative liberties taken in science fiction thrillers, contribute to public fear and fascination with genetic techniques, like genetic engineering and synthetic biology, especially when it comes to food and medicine. How people gain an understanding of genetic principles and make decisions about societal controversies related to the science of genetics may be another area where citizen science lends a hand.

banner image by JD Hancock of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles