Science Articles (How to Read) pt 2

Here's a recent article you might want to use in the classroom to prove that science articles can be deceptive (see earlier "How to Read Science Articles"). This one overstates its case, from Space.com:  "Earth Life Likely Came from Mars, Study Suggests"  If you know that no life has been found on Mars (as the article itself states), then the term "Likely" should set off red flags.  The article reads:

"No indigenous Red Planet organisms have ever been discovered. But it is possible that life on Mars — if it ever existed — may have made its way to Earth at some point, many scientists say." [emphases mine]

The "likely" term is chiseled away by the more realistic terms of possibilities.  It is interesting that the author chose the term "many" to describe scientists.  Why?  Perhaps, to give the possibility more weight than it deserves and lend credence to the use of the term "likely."

After reading the article, I wonder if the author should have stated "Some chemicals that life may require may have come from Mars."  Or maybe the author thinks, despite the lack of evidence for life on Mars, the conditions on Mars may have been more conducive to life and maybe it started there, survived a necessarily violent upheaval in order to fly it off Mars toward Earth, survived radiation and vacuum and atmospheric reentry and a crash landing to seed life on Earth.  Maybe.

If you read this for class, you might ask the students to come up with questions like:  Why is life "likely" to come from Mars?  How many is "many?"  What does it mean that scientists acknowledge the possibility of something?  Why do some scientists believe that life must have these chemicals to begin life?  Are they saying that life on Earth is unlikely to begin without rocks from Mars?  Is there evidence?

Science Articles (How to Read)

Whether students go on to work in science or not, it is important that they be knowledgeable consumers of science.  Sometimes scientific studies are flawed or has an agenda; sometimes the writer is flawed or has an agenda.  Claims get overstated or misinterpreted.  (See:  "Researchers have found that authors of "soft science" research papers tend to overstate results more often than researchers in other fields.") Students need to be able to think critically, to see for themselves what is reliable and what is not.

This is probably one of the easiest yet most useful, practical exercises I have done as a teacher.  Often I will introduce the topic by dissecting a flawed article.  There was one in Phys.org about depression, and one in Scientific American about Facebook that we picked apart, sentence by sentence.  I'll see if I can find those (there's a newly released, problematic article which I will discuss today here).  But really any article will do, but it helps if the article is flawed so that students see that "Scientists found that" does not necessarily = the whole truth.

The rules are simple:

1. Find a science article from a reliable source.  (Science News, Scientific American, etc.)  
1. Length is unimportant.  (It just has to answer #3 below)
2. I tend to let them read in any field because I want them to focus on their interests, which will help them engage in the activity.
2. Read.
3. Summarize in one to three sentences about what the scientists learned.  
1. Focus them or they will ramble all over the place.  If they reach the end and cannot answer this question, they've read the wrong article.  Early on, you may have to repeat, "What did the scientists learn?" frequently.
2. Also, this must be reported orally.  There's something soporific about students reading aloud their summaries (and it usually includes more information than they need).  No, they do not need to look up the exact name of the drug used.  (They can write it down for reference, especially if they're not going to report orally that day.)
4. Finally, the most important part, ask a question about what the scientists learned.  Sometimes students need guidance.  Provide the question starters, "Who, what, when, where, why, and how."  It helps.  

The first day you do this will be unimpressive, but subsequent days tend to get more impressive--the questions they come up with. Many start to sound like well informed college students.  I have done this with seventh grade to twelfth grade students with success.  However, those times we only did it a few times during the year were only so-so--no matter what grade.  This, of course, will depend on what your administrators allow.  Some only want you to plow through the book or state standards, but hopefully the smarter ones will realize the value of such an exercise.

Sample questions:

• Why did this happen?
• What caused this?
• What might result from this?
• What aspects might the scientists have overlooked?  (proper controls, etc.)
• What future experiments might result?
• Would using X make a difference?
• Would doing this to X produce the same result?

If you know the answer, chime in.  Or simply acknowledge the good question.

This may be a useful activity for spurring ideas for a science fair.  I plan to use this as an idea generator and a way to help them focus on what might interest them for projects:  What kinds of articles did you want to read?  Does this give an idea for a future experiment?

Science Fair procedure

Here is my new science fair procedure.  It is probably good to introduce science fair with the scientific method so that 1) students can get a head start on projects, and 2) reinforce the scientific method with practice.  I also teach how to read and write lab reports at the same time.  My lab reports differ from science-fair models in that mine are based on what some scientists/journals actually use.  More on this later if I remember or if people express interest.

Procedure:

1. Come up with a scientific field you enjoy.  (Class, subject:  i.e. Physics)  Or a favorite hobby, food, sports, game, etc.  Or read random science articles:  Which tend to capture our interest?  Are there local science interests?  (If you chose something more specific than a field, skip to #3)
2. Come up with a topic you enjoyed within that subject. (i.e. magnetism)
3. Study topic generally (i.e. read in book, or read general topic book).
4. Based on study and brainstorming ideas about it, ask a question about said topic.  (i.e. Can magnets...?)
5. Look up answer to question.  Does an answer exist?  If so, use study to come with a new study, one they did not investigate.  Rewrite question.
6. Repeat the above until you have a unique question.
7. Reexamine question.  Does it include/imply a method to incorporate numbers for purposes of graphs, etc.?  If not, rewrite.
8. Follow your lab notebook procedure, writing down what you did each day AS you do it.

 Again, please let me know if you use this and what modifications you come up with.  I will pass on any modifications I come up with.