The Internet makes it difficult to assess the information sources that school students use. Web pages covering a wide range of subjects—from unproven stem-cell treatments, to creationism, to the predictions about the CERN super-collider precipitating the end of the world via a black hole—mean there is a growing need to help students navigate what is and isn't scientific beyond the classroom.
What insights can be taken from scientific reasoning and used as tools by the students, and the wider public, to question and evaluate scientific information? One is the peer review process.
At Sense About Science, a UK-based charity that promotes evidence and good science for the public, we are working with scientists, journal editors, teachers, and school students to create lesson plans and resources that provide insights into what scientific knowledge is, how it is acquired, and the questions to ask of scientific information in the ...
