Every time you discuss air pollution, global

warming, or vaccinations and outbreaks (or

many other science topics), you have the

opportunity to get your students thinking

about complex issues in their world. Your

students may not have had much

experience looking at problems from

different viewpoints, but socio scientific

instruction (SSI) allows them to broaden their outlooks and to realize most issues not only have more than one right solution, they may need more than one right solution.

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   Socio scientific teaching is a variation of problem-based learning/teaching (PBL). Many PBL characteristics which are probably well-known to you are also features of SSI.  

 

   SSI combines science content with socially relevant, real-world issues. SSI takes social issues in the students’ world and relates the issues to the science content they are studying. Students immediately see the connection between the science in the classroom and real-world relevance.

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Socio Scientific Issues Instruction:

• Combines socially relevant, real-world issues with course content

• Uses data to reinforce concepts and inform critical thinking

• Is ill-structured and open-ended; problems can have more than one “right” answer

• Builds on real-word problems

• Is relevant to today’s issues

• Has some controversy to the social scientific issue

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And What It Isn't

   It is often thought that all science content is contextualized in society and therefore, when students learn any content, it is automatically a socio scientific issue. This is a misconception. The critical thinking applied to problem-solving the ill-structured issue is crucial to students gaining the skills they need to build scientific thinking. These are valuable skills that will allow students to more easily and objectively analyze problems they encounter throughout their lives. SSI allows them to not only analyze the problem more objectively, but also to learn to communicate more effectively.

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   Most science topics have some related SSI aspects that you could build into the curriculum. For example, global climate change is often mentioned as a good topic to introduce SSI strategies. If students are tasked with coming up with a solution to climate change, what solution could they find? Certainly, there are many correct approaches they may discuss, but there isn’t going to be one “right answer” for that ill-structured problem. Add in some details to give the problem more context and the solution gets trickier. What if the problem is what to do about climate change that is altering the type of crop that can be grown in a region?

 

Let’s use an example to find out how the characteristics of SSI would look in a classroom activity:

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   The students have been studying body systems and health topics and are going to begin a chapter on the immune system and how the body fights disease. You tell them they are going to be working on an activity that will allow them to investigate vaccines. They will work in groups and at the end of their research, they will be presenting their solution to a problem in their fictional community. Given the recent outbreaks of several contagious diseases, their community is deciding on whether or not vaccines for these contagious diseases will be mandatory.

 

   But first, they have to understand vaccines in order to make a sound decision. Now, provide some scaffolding for your students to begin work. They can study the immune system and how the body fights disease and find out how vaccines work. You may want to introduce them to herd immunity which provides protection from disease for those people who cannot be immunized.

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   Students then take their content knowledge and apply it to their SS issue.  Their team has to come up with a solution to the problem and they have to agree.

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   What decision do they make based on content knowledge? How do they back up their solution? Is there more than one perspective on the issue? Do they come up with a compromise so they can move forward? Provide a deadline for their decision.

 

   Student teams are now ready to present their solution/decision to the class. They must defend their position and base it on content knowledge and data. If teams have different solutions (and they usually will), it should be decided on by a vote. The community (of your class) will vote and decide which solution will be adopted by the fictional community based on the science content and facts. SSI solutions are not opinions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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