Improving Science Literacy using Current Events

Idea bank is a great column that provides useful tidbits that can be used in the classroom. I want to specifically comment on the first idea. I have used current events in my high school s... See More

Idea bank is a great column that provides useful tidbits that can be used in the classroom. I want to specifically comment on the first idea. I have used current events in my high school science classroom since I became teaching in 1993. However, I shied away from formal classroom discussion after several years because of time constraints. I want to change that and I feel the interrogations method will help. I really like the set-up that the author suggests. It will provide for rich discussion. I think it would be useful to assign several related articles and guide students in seeing how scientific thinking on a certain topic developed.

This Is for the Really Knowledgeable

Reading articles from the prestigious magazine “Scientific American’ has always been a challenge for me. However, to incorporate more rigor in a science classroom this author suggests requi... See More

Reading articles from the prestigious magazine “Scientific American’ has always been a challenge for me. However, to incorporate more rigor in a science classroom this author suggests requiring students to read and particular article and take notes on it to prepare for question- and-answer discussions (interrogations) based on the assigned articles. The author justifies using these articles and briefly explains how he uses them in his classroom. This might be useful for an upper level science class in high school such as an AP class or baccalaureate one but I feel this would be too difficult for an average class.