Society Shapes Research: a skill companion

A small set of reusable sheets that grow one way of thinking about science at Year 10 depth: how what a society values and needs (safety, food, health of the land, curiosity, profit) decides which questions get researched first, who gets to ask them, and how the focus can shift when a new need appears. Print the scaffolds once and slot them into the science lessons you already teach.

What a skill companion is

Ideas about how science works are not a topic of their own. They grow inside the units a class teaches all year. So this pack is not a full term of lessons. It is three reusable scaffolds, a map of where they fit, and a short stand-alone lesson for teaching the idea first.

Start here: five minutes

1. Read the pairing map on the next page: it gives a need of society and the research it pushed for each Year 10 topic.
2. Print the stakeholder map when a topic touches a local issue, and the case study when a class studies the atmosphere.
3. Cut out the cards once. They are reused all year.
4. Open the free interactive unit on your board when you want a worked example.
5. Run the one-page mini-lesson first if you want to teach the idea before folding it into a topic.

The step up from Year 9

The descriptor is the same in Years 9 and 10; the depth is not. In Year 9 students mapped a research agenda and followed one drought. In Year 10 they map several groups with different values around one issue, including the Traditional Owners of the land, and follow a case in which a scientific warning reshaped research and law across the world, then shifted again when the fix caused a new problem.

A need of society behind every Year 10 topic

Research money and attention are limited, so society’s needs and values decide much of where they go. This map gives, for each Year 10 topic, a need or value and the research it pushed forward.

The three moves, and the picture that backs each one

When you want a worked example on the board, open the interactive unit and use the picture that matches the move.

• Weigh competing needs for limited money: “One grant, several pressing needs”.
• Find what really drives a research focus: “What really drives the focus of research?”.
• Watch a new need shift the focus: “How an emerging need shifts the research focus”.

Who wants which question answered first?

The issue: Summers in our city are getting hotter, and heatwaves are lasting longer. Each group below would like research done, but each values different things and would ask a different question first. Fill in the map. The first row is done for you.

A hole in the sky: how a need reshaped research

High in the atmosphere, the ozone layer absorbs much of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet light. Australia, with one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, had good reason to care when scientists warned it was being damaged.

Questions

Which research did each need push?

Cut out the twelve cards. Six describe a need of society; six describe a direction of research. Pair each need with the research it pushed. Then rank the six needs by how urgent your community would say they are, and compare your ranking with another group’s.

Teacher note: the answer sheet lists the pairs. Rankings will differ: the point is that values decide them.

Who sets the question?

Summers in our city are getting hotter, and heatwaves are lasting longer. Groups each speak for one part of the community: residents in older houses, the council, a sports club, the electricity company, and the Traditional Owners of the land. Each proposes the one research question it wants answered first. The class has only enough research money for two questions. The choice shows that what gets researched depends on what people value and who is heard, as well as on the science.

We are learning to

• explain how the needs and values of groups shape research questions,
• compare the questions different groups would ask about the same issue,
• reflect on whose voices decide where research goes.

Success criteria

• I can explain why my group chose its question, by the value behind it.
• I can say which values decided the class’s choice, and whose need was left out.

You need

• role cards (the five groups, written on paper), six tokens for each student to spend on the questions, and the board for the questions,
• the stakeholder map and case study (scaffolds 1 and 2), and the cards from scaffold 3, one set per table.

Lesson flow (about 30 minutes)

Running it shorter? Skip the speeches; groups write their question and the class votes with tokens.

Watch for these ideas

• Thinking research questions come from science alone, with no people deciding.
• Treating the group with the most money or votes as the one with the most need.
• Leaving out groups whose knowledge of the land could shape the research itself.

Make it easier, make it bigger

• Easier: give each group a ready-made question and ask only for the value behind it.
• Bigger: write one question that serves two groups at once, and argue for it.

Answers and look-fors

The next sheet has the stakeholder map completed, the case study answered, the card pairs, and a quick three-level guide.

Answers and look-fors

Stakeholder map (rows 2 to 5)

Any first choice is fine if it names the value behind it. Residents in hot houses have a pressing need but little money or organisation; groups, councils and journalists can help them be heard.

Case study

The needs and values: protecting health from ultraviolet light, especially in a country with high skin-cancer rates, and caring for the environment. After 1985, research turned to measuring ozone loss and finding its cause; after 1987, to safer replacement gases and long-term monitoring. Cape Grim mattered because a long, careful record of clean air shows changes that a single measurement cannot, including whether the phase-out is working. In 2016 the focus shifted again because the replacement gases were found to warm the climate: a fix raised a new problem. Companies making or using CFCs, and countries that relied on them, had reasons to argue against a fast phase-out, mainly cost.

Need and research cards (pairs)

A quick three-level guide

In the mini-lesson, the token vote usually follows the questions most students feel personally, not always the most urgent. The blackout makes most groups shift to keeping people cool without power, a new need that reshapes every question.