Beginning with a short video on how to differentiate between bad science news and good science news to help you skim the articles and research you find on your self-selected species, this lesson offers in-class time and teacher/librarian support to locate a minimum of four (4) relevant and credible online sources to use in your persuasive research letters.
Crash Course Video on Identifying Credible Sources:
"How to Read Science News" From PBS Digital Studios comes an "It's Okay to Be Smart Video" about the warning signs of untrustworthy sources due to the plethora of science news claiming erroneous, outrageous stories: "How to Read Science News." In order to help you skim the research articles you find online and choose the best ones, we watched the short video as a crash course on weeding out the blatantly flawed and questionable sources by developing your "science truthiness detector." As Joe Hanson states, "Figuring out what's bad science and what's good science when you're reading science news is one of the best skills you can put right up here in your thinking machine." Refer to the "cheat sheet" below for a list of the video's eight points. |
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Text-to-World Connections: Applying Tip #4 to Our Databases To immediately ground Joe Hanson's tips in our class research and validate the video's relevancy to our final project's resources and requirements, the librarian showed students a search feature of the databases that aligns with one of the video's tips: "Scientific Method Applied?" According to Joe Hanson, you should "take the time to check if what you're reading has been peer-reviewed" (2:48-3:15). To ensure you're following his advice, scroll down to the "Search Options" on a ProQuest "Advanced Search" and check the boxes - "Full Text" and "Peer Reviewed" - before conducting a search! The checkbox location is identified and highlighted by a red square on a screenshot of the database search menu below. |
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Online Research
Given a list of recommended websites and databases to explore and search, you will locate, skim, and print out the articles that you find relevant to your self-selected species. You need a minimum of four (4) articles. One must be from a database. You may wish to find more than four to ensure that you have enough sources later on if you discover one - upon closer reading through CHoMP - is untrustworthy or irrelevant. We spent the day in the computer lab, allotting a full class period to your research. You may explore websites outside of the recommended list, but be sure to use reliable sources, identifying features like ".org" and ".gov" to guide your general Google searches. Any untrustworthy sources used in your research letter will result in a grade reduction, so be sure to cross-check your sources and ask the teacher for a second opinion on the website's credibility if uncertain. |
Click on the logos below to be linked to the recommended websites and databases for your online research!
World Wildlife Fund http://worldwildlife.org/
Cool Green Science http://blog.nature.org/science/?s_intc=tab3p3
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society http://www.seashepherd.org/
Student Science https://student.societyforscience.org/sciencenews-students
The Environmentalist http://greenpeaceblogs.org/