Scientific Literacy

"Scientific literacy is the capacity to use scientific knowledge, to identify questions and to draw evidence-based conclusions in order to understand and help make decisions about the natural world and the changes made to it through human activity."   

For a full description of PISA's interpretation of scientific literacy, see Chapter 3 of the publication "PISA 2003 Assessment Framework - Mathematics, Reading, Science and Problem Solving Knowledge and Skills"  (the full publication is available here ).