How to engage students with (open) science: make it relevant, in-depth, and proactive

Critically engaging undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students in science means, according to the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes, developing their relational and extended abstract level scientific literacy. Consequently, we invite the reader to join us - four fellow educators - on a journey as we share and reflect on three case studies from our teaching practice where we have facilitated scientific literacy: i) introducing students to open science through the use of existing datasets to explore sensitive topics, ii) evaluating the evidence behind bold media claims, and iii) discussing publication bias and its influence on evidence synthesis. In practice, educators can adopt these case studies; but we go further in reflectively outlining a useful set of commonalities and practices across them that can be used by educators in developing relevant, in-depth and proactive teaching and learning activities to promote relational and extended abstract level scientific literacy.