Citizenship Teaching Materials
Citizenship: Research Assessment Materials
In this three-day mini-unit, students will be introduced to scientific arguments as the way that we answer questions in science. Through reading about and discussing a socioscientific issue, they will learn that scientific arguments are useful in our day-to-day lives beyond the science classroom. Students will read arguments presented by stakeholders who represent different perspectives regarding a socioscientific issue. The students will come up with criteria they think are important for evaluating the arguments, and then the students will evaluate different arguments about the issue using their own criteria. Next, the class will be introduced to some criteria that the scientific community uses to evaluate scientific arguments. Through class discussion, arguments will be re-evaluated using several of the scientific criteria, and comparisons (similarities and differences) between science community criteria and students’ criteria will be discussed. Finally, students will consider how and why scientific arguments may be important beyond the science classroom, and the limitations of scientific arguments for helping us decide what to do about socioscientific issues.
Citizenship Teaching Experiment
(Download all files in a zip)
Main Unit Materials (Download zip)
Forest Carbon Sequestation (download zip)
- Carbon Sequestation Teacher Guide (download)
- Erickson Carbon Sequestation (download)
- Leighty Carbon Sequestration (download)
- McKinley Carbon Sequestration (download)
- Power Carbon Sequestration (download)
- Science Daily Carbon Sequestration (download)
Polar Bear Topic Materials (download zip)
- Teacher Topic Materials Guide Polar Bears (download)
- Inbreeding Case Studies Power point (download)
- Polar Bear Worries Unproven Article (download)
- Polar Bear Ongoings (download)
Atrazine Topic Materials (download zip)
- Teacher Topic Materials Guide Atrazine (download)
- Argument Student Handouts Atrazine (download)
- Hart Atrazine Article 1 (download)
- Science News Atrazine Article 2 (download)
- Ansari Atrazine Article 3 (download)
- Purdue University Atrazine Article 4 (download)
- Snow Atrazine Article 5 (download)
- Cohen Atrazine Article 6 (download)
Bottled Water Topic Materials
- Bottled Water Teacher Topic Materials (download)
- EPA Bottled Water Basics (download)
- EWG Article 1.23.12 (download)
- Yale Scientist Refutes EWG Study (download)
- IWBA EWG Press Release Oct 2008 Short (download)
2011-2012 Citizenship Teaching Experiment Materials
- City Council Activity Teacher Guide (download)
- City Council Packet (download)
- Riverton City Council Group Packet (download)
- Using Science in Decision Making Powerpoint (download)
- Presentation Guidelines (download)
Professional Development Materials
Citizenship Mini-Unit Presentations (download)