<![CDATA[Chemical literacy involves using chemical knowledge to interpret phenomena, evaluate information, and respond to issues connected with everyday life. This study investigated students’ HOTS-based chemical literacy after instruction using the Community Science Technology (CST) learning model supported by Flipbook media. A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control-group design was conducted at SMA Negeri 11 Medan during the 2025/2026 academic year. Class XI-6 was the experimental group and Class XI-8 was the control group. The experimental group learned through CST supported by Flipbook media, whereas the control group received conventional instruction. Students’ chemical literacy was assessed using a multiple-choice test; 20 of the 30 developed items were retained as valid. The experimental group’s mean score increased from 41.29 on the pretest to 86.14 on the posttest, while the control group’s mean increased from 40.86 to 75.29. The N-Gain was 0.8427 (high) in the experimental group and 0.6342 (medium) in the control group. An independent-samples t-test produced t = 5.870 and a one-tailed p-value below 0.001, indicating a statistically significant difference in improvement between the groups. The experimental group also recorded higher N-Gain percentages for C4 + Reasoning (77.0%), C5 + Reasoning (79.5%), and C6 + Reasoning (71.2%). The results suggest that the combined CST and Flipbook approach can support the development of higher-order chemical literacy in the topic of hydrocarbons and petroleum.]]>
