Lesson Title: Teaching the concept of Authority

Lesson Length: 30 minutes

Grade Level/Course: Middle School Science

Overview: The purpose of this lesson is to have students work on identifying the authority used to back up a claim and evaluating the strength of that authority.

KS Science Standards Grades 8-12 addressed in this lesson:

STANDARD 7: HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE – The student will develop understanding of science as a human endeavor, the nature of scientific knowledge, and historical perspectives

Benchmark 1: The student will develop an understanding that science is a human endeavor that usesmodels to describe and explain the physical universe.

2. recognizes that society helps create the ways of thinking (mindsets) required for scientific advances, both toward training scientists and educating a populace to utilize benefits of science (e.g., standards of hygiene, attitudes toward forces of nature, etc.).

3. understands there are many issues which involve morals, ethics, values or spiritual beliefs that go beyond what science can explain, but for which solid scientific literacy is useful.

STANDARD 7: HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE – The student will develop understanding of science as a human endeavor, the nature of scientific knowledge, and historical perspectives

Benchmark 2: The student will develop an understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge.

1. understands scientific knowledge describes and explains the physical world in terms of matter, energy, and forces. Scientific knowledge is provisional and is subject to change as new evidence becomes available.

2. understands scientific knowledge begins with empirical observations, which are the data (also called facts or evidence) upon which further scientific knowledge is built.

3. understands scientific knowledge consists of hypotheses, inferences, laws, and theories.

4. understands a testable hypothesis or inference must be subject to confirmation by empirical evidence

Student Outcomes: Students will be able to identify the use of authority in a claim and evaluate the strength of that authority.

Content Overview:

This lesson will only work with identifying the authority used to back up a claim and evaluate the strength of that authority.

Instructional Plan:

Cue

1. Tell students: Every day in the media, some source is trying to convince us about their claim on a scientific issue. As a citizen of our community, our state, our country and our world, it is our responsibility to be able to look at an issue, evaluate the information and make decisions on what is best. These decisions impact our personal, social and political choices.

Do

  1. Lead a discussion about authority figures. Come up with a definition of authority figure: Someone who has more knowledge about a particular subject and can tell you how to behave based on that knowledge.
  2. Then have the students name authority figures in their lives. (parents, teachers, relatives, doctors, coaches, religious leaders). Now ask them if they were to rank the authority figures from minimal authority to maximum authority how would the ones we’ve listed rank.
  3. Then ask them about their parents or teachers, who are the authority figures in their lives. Make sure students list personal ones like relatives, bosses, as well as more distant ones like the doctors, police, IRS, the military. They may even discuss local authority figures mayors, etc and federal or governmental like the senate, president FBI, etc. Have them rank their list again.
  4. Ask them are there different levels/strengths of authority? If your teacher tells you a direction and then a police officer tells you a different direction – whose direction will you follow? Why? Then lead into a discussion about the scientific community. Who are the authority figures there?

2. Tell students: Now that we’ve talked about authority figures in our daily lives We’ll read the article aloud and discuss what the author wants us to believe (the claim they’re making). Then we’ll look at the authority they used to us believe their claim.

Popcorn read the lesson aloud stopping along the way to discuss any difficult vocabulary or concepts. Then discuss the claim or what the author is trying to get us to believe, and the authority they used to back up their claim. Have them rate the strength of the authority as a class.

Review

Ask them how the authority used helped them to believe or question the claim the article made. Show them where this information would go on the AEG form and you are done.

Assessment Plan: After the class discussion, have the students work as groups to fill out the authority table with the strength of that authority and why they think that.

References:

Appendix:1.Lesson 2. short articles 3. authority table for ranking and explaining