Weighing a Scientific Response: a skill companion

A small set of reusable sheets that grow one Human Endeavour idea: science can offer several responses to an issue, each response brings benefits and costs, and people decide by weighing its environmental, social, ethical and economic effects together. Print the scaffolds once and slot them into the science lessons you already teach.

What a skill companion is

Human Endeavour ideas are not a topic of their own. They grow inside the science units a class teaches all year, such as Classifying Living Things, Energy Flow in Ecosystems, Earth, Sun and Moon, Balanced and Unbalanced Forces, The Particle Model of Matter, and Pure Substances and Mixtures. 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 on its own first.

Start here: five minutes

1. Read the pairing map on the next page: it shows an issue with responses to weigh in each Year 7 topic.
2. Print the weigh-it-up sheet whenever a topic meets an issue, and the case-study sheet once per student.
3. Cut out the cards once. They are reused all year, whenever a class sorts the effects of a response.
4. Open the free interactive unit on your board when you want a worked example of the idea.
5. Run the one-page mini-lesson first if you want to teach the idea before folding it into a topic.

No science background needed

Each scaffold explains itself in plain words, and the answer sheet gives a model weighing of the unit’s plastic responses, the case-study answers, the card key with a reason for each, a model answer for every Year 7 topic and a quick three-level guide. In Year 6, students saw how communities use science to identify problems and make decisions. The step up in Year 7 is the weighing itself: setting out each response’s benefits and costs under four kinds of effect, and choosing with reasons, rather than waiting for a response with no downside.

Slot the idea into your science lessons

Every science topic meets an issue where science offers more than one response. This map shows one in each Year 7 topic, the responses being weighed, and which scaffold to reach for. You do not run these as extra lessons; you fold them into the science you teach.

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.

• Set out what each response gains and gives up: “Responses to plastic waste: what is gained, what is given up”.
• Test a popular claim about a response: “Is recycling alone enough to fix plastic waste?”.
• Measure whether a response worked, before and after: the litter-survey graph for the deposit scheme.

How the scaffolds build the idea

The weigh-it-up sheet sets three responses against the four kinds of effect, and ends with a choice and a way to check it. The case study weighs three responses to cane toads, a problem that itself began as a scientific response in 1935. The cards sort effects into environmental, social, ethical and economic.

Weigh the responses

Write the issue and three responses science offers. For each response, note one benefit (+) and one cost (−) of each kind, then choose, and say how you would check that your choice worked.

Teacher note: the unit’s three plastic responses fill the table well as a first go; a model is on the answer sheet.

Cane toads: choosing the next response

In 1935, 102 cane toads were brought from Hawaii to Gordonvale, near Cairns, to eat the beetles that damage sugar cane. Some scientists warned that the toads had not been studied first. The toads did not control the beetles. They spread instead, and today they live across much of northern Australia and are still moving west. Many native animals that try to eat a toad, such as northern quolls, goannas and some snakes, die from its poison. Scientists are now testing responses, such as these three.

What kind of effect is it?

Cut out the cards and lay down the four grey heading cards. Sort each effect under the kind it belongs to. Be ready to say why: a few cards touch two kinds, so choose the one that fits best.

Teacher note: three cards go under each heading. The answer sheet lists which is which, and why.

Four voices, one decision

Use this stand-alone lesson to teach the idea on its own, before you fold it into a science topic. In groups of four, each student speaks for one kind of effect and scores three responses to plastic waste. The group adds the scores, then asks whether every kind of effect should count the same.

We are learning to

• set out the benefits and costs of a response under four kinds of effect,
• weigh responses against each other, and say which costs matter most,
• name what we would measure to check that a response worked.

Success criteria

• I can give a benefit and a cost of a response for my kind of effect, with a reason.
• I can explain why our group chose its response, and what we gave up.

You need

• the weigh-it-up sheet (scaffold 1), one per group, with the three responses written in: kerbside recycling, a ban on single-use items, and compostable materials,
• the four grey heading cards from scaffold 3, one set per group, to share out as roles,
• the free interactive unit on your board, if you have one.

Lesson flow (about 30 minutes)

Running it shorter? Weigh two responses only, and sort the effect cards in your next science lesson.

Watch for these ideas

• Waiting for the one perfect response, with no costs at all.
• Weighing only money, or only the environment, and missing who carries the costs.
• Adding scores as if every effect mattered equally, without asking whether some harm cannot be undone.

Make it easier, make it bigger

• Easier: weigh two responses for two kinds of effect, environmental and economic, first.
• Bigger: plan a before-and-after count for a change at school, such as at the canteen, and run it for two weeks.

Answers and look-fors

The next sheet has a model weighing of the three plastic responses, the case-study answers, the card key, a model answer for each Year 7 topic, and a quick three-level guide.

Answers and look-fors

Weigh it up: the unit’s plastic responses

1. A strong answer combines them: ban what is easy to replace, recycle the rest, and use compostables only where they can be composted, accepting extra costs for less litter. 2. Count litter before and after, as in the unit’s deposit-scheme graph.

Case study: cane toads

1. It was meant to control the beetles that damage sugar cane. It did not; the 102 toads’ offspring spread across northern Australia instead, poisoning native predators such as quolls, goannas and some snakes.

3. Fencing suits a cattle station in dry country, where the dams are the only water; beside a creek that always has water it cannot work, so teaching the predators fits better. 4. Test a response on a small scale, and check its effects on other animals, before using it widely; then keep measuring. 5. Scientists, landholders, Traditional Owners and rangers, and the wider community.

Effect cards

Accept a second heading with a good reason, such as card H under ethical (fairness) or card E under environmental.

What a good answer sounds like

A quick three-level guide

A student at standard weighs each response under all four kinds of effect, chooses with reasons and plans a check.