Seed Magazine has just announced the winners of a competition that invited contestants to answer the question:

 What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st Century?

One of the winning essays, Camelot is only a model, praised the ability to know how to use models and when to discard them.

Understanding that our scientific knowledge is “only” a model is the key to true scientific literacy. Knowing this tells us that our science has built-in limitations, but that it does resemble reality in very fundamental ways. More importantly, that understanding gives us permission to use our models when they are useful—and permission to discard them when they no longer meet our needs.

How do you teach that in middle school?