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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Science and Environmental Communication
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1589116
This article is part of the Research Topic The Erosion of Trust in the 21st Century: Origins, Implications, and Solutions View all 3 articles
Teaching Trust in Science: A Critical New Focus for Science Education
Provisionally accepted- 1 National Association of Science Writers, Inc., Berkeley, California, United States
- 2 John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom
- 3 School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
The recent pandemic has revealed the importance of understanding how scientific knowledge is produced, if citizens are to make decisions that protect themselves, their communities, and their nations. Creating such an understanding presents a critical and urgent challenge for the world’s education systems. In this essay, we propose that teachers prioritize producing an understanding of the scientific process at all levels of science education.
Keywords: Education, Trust, Science - general, Communication, misinformation, Health
Received: 06 Mar 2025; Accepted: 18 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hopkin, Roberts and Alberts. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Bruce Alberts, School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, California, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.