Science Words Students Know

centripetal heterogeneous kinetic propagate terrestrial abyss conduct homogenous latent quantitative trajectory acoustics diffract hybrid narcosis refract tropism amplitude dipole hypothesis oscillation replicate turbidity anaerobic dynamic inhibit ovule salinity variation apogee ellipse interval oxidation superpose vestigial aurora energy invariant pattern synthesis viscosity biennial exothermic joule perennial taxonomy volatile biosphere ze ith lary related to science, is presented, were identified in locally produced This word list was developed to promaterials. From these words a list vide teachers evidence of the recogof 277 scientific terms, which nition of selected science words by could be defined by use of cornstudents in grades 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, mon graded word lists, was seand 12. Though the list was devellected. Definitions were provided oped for use by teachers in the that contained words with diffiBroward County (Florida) Schools, a culty already established as besubsequent study indicates its utility low the seventh grade vocabulary for other populations (Knight and (Rinsland, 1945; Thorndike and Barry, in press). Lorge, 1944). Each word was Initially, some 450 science words tested with a significant sample KNIGHT & BETHUNE: Science Words 505 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.112 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 05:01:50 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms of students (N = 2,920) in grades 7-12 from the twenty-nine junior and senior high schools in Broward County. The instruments were designed to test the ability of students to substitute meaningful words or phrases for the vocabulary words as they are used in sentences. The definition developed for each word was not designed to test depth of science knowledge but hopefully would provide a measure of the ability of students to read material that contained these words (Bethune, 1969; Knight and Bethune, 1970). In compiling the lists, if 75 percent of the students at a given grade level knew the word, it was included for that grade level. This is an arbitrary percentage. It is felt that, given proper contextual support, students at a given grade level would recognize a larger percentage of words. The words in the list could thus be used successfully in classes at that level. Since the trend was to higher percentages at higher grades any word appearing on the seventh grade list could be considered proper for eighth grade and above. Conversely any word on the eighth grade list but not on the seventh grade list should be clarified for the seventh grade students. Some possible applications for this list are: 1. Teachers may use words that are already in the reading vocabulary of students as they prepare materials for classroom use. They will be able to omit words which are probably not understood by the intended reader thereby making their materials more readable. 2. Teachers may use the list as a guide in estimating the number of "new" vocabulary words introduced in commercially prepared