Posted on March 19, 2009  Comments (6)

Questions:

• How long does it take for the Earth to revolve around the Sun?
• Did the earliest humans and dinosaurs live on the earth at the same time?
• What percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water?

According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences: only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun; only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time; only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water. Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly. I sure hope readers of this blog do much better than that.

Despite the fact that access to fresh water is likely to be one of the most pressing environmental issues over the coming years, less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet’s water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%).

Related: Scientific Illiteracy – Understanding the Evolution of Human Beings by Country – Report on K-12 Science Education in USA – Try to Answer 6 Basic Science Questions

Answers:
You can take the 6 question survey on the California Academy of Science site (until I bet they take it down). They don’t just have a url like www.calacademy.org/2009survey but instead just have it as part of the home page. Dumb design. 36,645 people took the survey online with an average of 4.7 correct answers (I got all 6 though honestly would have been lucky to get the fresh water answer if I hadn’t just read the anwer).

1) 1 year (~365.24 days) [they don’t say how the question was asked but the 2) No 3) 71% (The approximately correct answer range for this question was defined as anything between 65% and 75%.)

Full press release.