Getting topics from the text

Learning to do science is about learning to think. Experiments, direct teaching, cooperative learning, group activities and discussions all have a part to play. So do science news stories.

Like other non-fiction texts, science stories contain different kinds of statements. To get at the science behind the words - and to make reading them an active experience - students can pull a text apart and explore the kinds of statement it contains.

Science news stories usually include the aims of the research or reasons for doing it. They often contain a hypothesis. Sometimes evidence for a hypothesis is given, or a hypothesis is used to make a prediction. Towards the end of a story the direction of future research the scientists are planning is often discussed, as well as outstanding questions the research will be designed to answer.

All these types of statement occur in some science stories. Virtually all science stories, however, contain statements of the following four types:

• new findings or developments;

• the technology and methods the scientists used;

• previous or accepted knowledge, which may or may not be supported by the new findings;

• issues, implications and applications of the research.

So the next activity is designed to engage students with the latest science news by exploring the meaning and structure of a story as revealed by the content and balance of these four types of statement:

Pulling it apart

In groups students should read through the latest story looking for new findings or developments. Once they have reached agreement, or at least consensus, they should underline all the statements about what the scientists have just discovered or achieved.

In groups they should go through the story again looking for the technology and methods the scientists used in their research. Once they have reached agreement, or at least consensus, they should underline (in a different colour) all the statements about what the scientists have just discovered or achieved.

They should repeat the activity for existing knowledge.

Any areas of disagreement in these activities, whether among the students or between teacher and students, should be regarded as opportunities for discussion rather than errors to be corrected.

Having fully engaged with the latest science news through these activities, students will be far better able to talk and think about the science and its implications than those who have simply read about it in a newspaper or watched a brief item on television.

Now it’s time for them to get to grips with the issues raised by the research.

Putting it together again

Young people have opinions. But school science traditionally allowed little scope for forming and expressing these - which is why it turned many of them off the subject for life.

In groups, students should read through the latest story looking for issues, implications and applications. Once they have reached agreement, or at least consensus, they should underline all the relevant statements in the story.

Suggested discussion topics arising from this kind of exercise on the latest story are provided here.

Once students have tried this a few times with different stories, they should be encouraged to devise their own discussion, research or presentation activities, starting from a new story and using issues, implications and applications within it that they identify themselves.