Case Teaching And The Cultivation Of Geographical Scientific Literacy Of Middle School Students

Nowadays, scientific literacy of countrymen has become a basic factor for social stability and development, a foundation for a country's prosperity, and a key to overall power competition. There still exist in the 21^st century quite a number of problems around the world, such as natural disasters, environmental pollution, weather changes, vegetation damages, resources shortage, population problems, and regional economy gaps. All these problems are geographical, and their solution lies in the improved geographical scientific literacy of all nations. Investigations show that the scientific literacy of middle school students is low, especially their geographical scientific literacy. To improve students' geographical scientific literacy is a complicated project, in which school education is the base, curricula the media, and teaching method the key. It is therefore of great significance to seek effective teaching methods.This thesis adopts mainly such research methods as documents, questionnaires, experience, examples, diagrams and comparisons.The thesis first explores the connotations of scientific literacy, scientific literacy of middle school students, and geographical scientific literacy, and then, by means of questionnaires, analyzes the status quo of student's scientific literacy and their geographical scientific literacy. Through the analysis, the thesis reveals their low scientific literacy, especially their low geographical scientific literacy, and finds it important and urgent to improve their geographical scientific literacy. Based on the studies on case teaching and geographical case teaching, the thesis points out that geographical case teaching is a new teaching method conforming to curriculum reform, and discusses its unique role in cultivating students' geographical scientific literacy. The final part of the thesis, based on the author's own teaching experience and giving geography teaching as example, involves a deep research into how to apply geographical case teaching to improve students' geographical scientific literacy, and raises some problems to be paid attention to during the process.Through studies, the thesis believes that geographical case teaching, though there are some other teaching methods, is the most effective in cultivating the geographical scientific literacy of middle school students. Taking into consideration teaching aims, teaching contentsand student s' personalities, teachers should make full use of the advantages of geographical case teaching to cultivate students' geographical scientific literacy in such aspects as geographical scientific knowledge, geographical scientific method, geographical scientific ability, geographical scientific feeling and attitude and value, geographical scientific spirit, and the relation of geographical science and technology and the society.