AS Science in Society – Introducing coursework – Topical issue
Introducing coursework 2 – Topical Issue
In the topical issue students are expected to identify a suitable topical question, carry out
effective research and review the issue from different points of view. They then produce a
scientific report which demonstrates an understanding of the science and how science
works ideas involved in the question.
Section 3.2.2 of the specification gives the requirements, and section 3.2.4 the marking
criteria, for this piece of work. Teachers should make sure that they are familiar with
these. There is also a Coursework Advisor service available from AQA which has been
found by many teachers to be very helpful.
There are a number of Learning Skills in Science activities which are ideally suited to the
Topical Issue. It is likely that you will have made use of some of these activities before
starting the Topical Issue work. They are included in this SOW for information just in case
you haven’t used them, or if you wish to remind students about them to help them prepare
their work.
1
Focus
Suggested activities
What is a ‘Topical
Issue’ in science?
Either: prepare a powerpoint of headlines of topical
issues which could have more than one viewpoint
or: give out newspapers/use news websites to identify
controversial science issues – each student to come up 3
or more ideas.
As a group discuss why these issues are controversial.
2
Introducing the
coursework
Choose one or two of the headlines and ask students to
make up a few different questions that they could ask
about it.
Students should begin to plan what their topic will be and
develop a possible question. This powerpoint (what to
choose) gives a few hints.
Chapter 12 of the AS textbook contains very useful
information. Students could be asked to read through
this.
Refer to pages 201 – 206 of the textbook. Ask them to
complete a question sheet (Writing your Study) about the
coursework, using the information in those pages.
(Students could work in groups to complete this so that
there is less reading to do)
It is very helpful for students to mark examples of
coursework. This could be anonomised work which has
been kept from a previous year, or the material given out
at Standardising meetings by the exam board.
Use a ‘student speak’ marking grid to mark the work.
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©The Nuffield Foundation, 2009
Copies may be made for UK in schools and colleges
AS Science in Society – Introducing coursework – Topical issue
3
Collecting
information
(mainly in students
own time)
4
5
Plagiarism
Writing the report
Discuss with students useful sources of information for
their study. The weblinks have some possible starting
points.
LSS activities:
1.1 The information revolution (link with visit to library or
resource centre)
1.1 Using the internet to find information
1.2 Extracting key information from a scientific article at
‘first glance’
1.2 Delving deeper into an article at ‘second glance’
1.3 Skim reading a series of articles
Once students have begun to collect information, it is
worth reminding them about plagiarism and how
seriously it is treated, and how to summarise without
copying.
LSS activity
1.5 Copycat
Remind students about the structure of the report –
textbook pg 201, specification §3.2.2
LSS activities
1.5 Compiling a bibliography
1.5 Writing a scientific review article
1.5 Writing an abstract
As a self assessment exercise the students could use the
‘student speak’ version of the marking grid to assess
their own report.
Page 2
©The Nuffield Foundation, 2009
Copies may be made for UK in schools and colleges