GCSE Science B
Controlled Assessment - The Research Task (Task B).
RESEARCHING
Task B will require that you carry out some research. You may choose to use
to search through books in a library, articles from magazines, by completing
a survey or by using the web. It is important to keep focussed on what you
are looking for.
WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK FOR:
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Information backed by evidence.
Experimental data (or data from surveys etc.).
Data that you can present as a table or graph of your devising (e.g. look for tables of
information which you can then graph).
Details of the experiment/survey that produced the data (if possible).
Relevant pictures, charts and graphs.
You should probably look for at least 4 sources. Sometimes, sites use material from
news agencies, and the information can be basically the same on a number of
different sites. Look for different sources of information.
SEARCHING THE WEB
Since searching the web is an important aspect of finding information
there are a few things you should be aware of to make your life easier
when you search the web.
You may think there is not a lot to finding information on the web. In a
way that is true. However the problem is finding useful and relevant
information. That requires just a bit more thought.
Let us suppose that you have been asked to research whether or not there is evidence that
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is linked to global warming.
What will you do?
You could open Google and type the words carbon dioxide.
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This search has thrown up 76 400 000 hits! Many of these pages will not be useful or
relevant. Google will search for the two words separately in web pages. If you want to
search for the phrase carbon dioxide, you should use quote marks, “carbon dioxide”. Doing
this reduces the number of hits. Still the phrase carbon dioxide is too wide for this search.
It is far better in this case to search for “carbon dioxide levels”. Make sure you use the
quotes “…”
If you are looking for graphs you could try searching images using “carbon dioxide levels”.
Google may suggest alternative searches which you could try at this point.
You will need to find data you can use as part of the search. Adding the word ‘table’ may
help give you hits with tables of data. You could also try to change ‘table’ for ‘data’ if this
does not help.
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The following search looks for the phrase ‘carbon dioxide levels’ as well as the words
atmosphere and table. By typing “carbon dioxide levels” atmosphere table in the search
bar Google will search for the phrase and the words. The words atmosphere and table may
be separated from the phrase ‘carbon dioxide levels’.
Google can also search locations and/or when a web article was written.
Clicking ‘Pages from the UK’ will bring up hits from just the UK
Once you have found some potentially useful information, remember to copy the url (web
address) for the information and the date that you obtained it. You will need to evaluate the
information and that will be difficult if you forget where you found it!
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PLANNING A WEB SEARCH
Let us put together what we have learnt to plan for a web search on whether or not there is
evidence that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is linked to global warming.
Plan for web search
I will use Google to search the following:
Search one
“carbon dioxide levels” atmosphere table (Each of these to be typed as written into the
search bar)
Search two
“carbon dioxide levels” atmosphere using images rather than web (Each of these to be
typed as written into the search bar)
Search two
“global warming” “carbon dioxide levels” (Each of these to be typed as written into the
search bar)
Search three
evidence “global warming” “carbon dioxide” (Each of these to be typed as written into the
search bar)
Search four
how does “carbon dioxide” cause “global warming”
I will note both the web address, and date when found, of each piece of useful information.
I aim to find two pieces of useful information from each separate search which I may then
use in the task.
PLEASE NOTE
The document ‘Newshound: Reviewing information sources’ available on the WJEC website
can help you evaluate the information sources.
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