The science literacy survey is complete. A total of 212 responses have been recorded. Let us dive into the deeps.

The Survey and Its Mission

It is important to have a good science understanding or literacy. Being able to deduce whether or not something is meant to be misleading just for you to purchase their product, or so you can safely decide whether or not to put that burrito wrapped in aluminum foil in the microwave.

The survey consisted of 15 total questions. Three of those questions were not related to any type of science and were used to collect analytical data about peoples desire to learn about science and pursue learning it.

These questions were the basic fundamentals of science. It would appear the survey was garnered more to a physical science knowledge. We will now review all of the questions and discuss the statistics behind them.

The survey was disseminated using the Debatespot Facebook page, as well as being posted to a science reddit page. That being the case it may call for another survey in the future with a much broader search for answers and data.

Also in future surveys they will only be multiple choice. There will not be any free response as the accurate sum of correct answers is more of a task.

Results

This first question had a remarkable amount of success. 209/212 people got this answer correct.

5 people believed that the earth was the 4th planet from the sun replacing Mars in its rightful orbit. Still a resounding success.

12 people missed this question. However out of the entire surveyed group no one chose Spring.

There were some people who responded to me saying that technically ‘lepton’ would be correct. It is not being considered correct because Lepton is a class of particle. With the question being ” Which subatomic particle orbits the nucleus of an atom?” it would be inappropriate to say lepton as there are a total of 6 different leptons. Five of which do not orbit the nucleus of an atom.

It is for that reason that lepton is considered wrong.

What is Dihydrogen Monoxide?

This was a free response question. Looking through the data it appeared many people knew that it was water. I fancied putting this question into the survey and leaving it as a free response because it left only your brain to try and decipher what the answer could be, rather than going off of the other choices in a usual multiple choice question.

It was a Florida country radio morning show in 2013 that did a April Fools prank on their listeners. The shows hosts Val St. John and Scott Fish were facing possible felony because their listeners panicked so much. They told listeners that Dihydrogen Monoxide was coming out of the taps.

Their prank resulted in the Lee County Utility officials making a county wide announcement. It seems everyone thought this joke was of bad taste. They weren’t lying. They stated a simple fact that is irrefutable. However since the vast majority of the public was not the least scientifically literate, they were punished.

There isn’t much interesting in the results of this question. Aside from 3 people thinking Bill Nye gave us our initial understanding of gravity.

Still a resounding success. Many people knew that helium is indeed lighter than all of these other materials.

Seven people thought that humans could see in the infrared part of the spectrum

There were quite a few people that said sound could travel in space. In the strictest of terms sound cannot travel in space. The mechanism in which sound propagates require a medium like air. The particles in space are too far apart typically and therefore cannot effectively conduct the sound waves like they do in the atmosphere of Earth.

Which is why I would consider the No answer to be the most accurate and correct.

This is the question that had the least amount of correct answers.

Analytical Questions

The last bit of the survey asked questions regarding how much did they enjoy learning about science and whether or not they enjoyed live science podcasts that allows questions and answers.

Little under half were undecided whether or not they enjoyed podcasts.

A majority of the survey takers enjoyed learning science.

Conclusion and What Will Be Done Differently

The survey was a success. It appeared many people were exceptionally literate in science. That is probably due to a unintentionally targeted survey group. The next survey group will be much broader and diverse.