It can be hard for young people to assess the claims they see every day, on the news, radio, social media. Are the claims true? What is the evidence? Is the evidence reliable?
We were delighted to be invited to go to a local Girl guiding group this week to answer exactly these questions! The focus of our evening was a Sense about Science evidence hunter activity
With the aid of some posters, handouts, and a LOT of post-it notes, we had an entertaining evening learning about claims, evidence and how to assess different sources of evidence.
The girls (aged 10-14) were really engaged and asked intelligent questions about the information on show. They really were critical evidence hunters – ready to question everything they saw and heard – which is great to see in the modern age of fake news!
They learnt to ‘Ask for Evidence’ for any claim, that evidence comes from different sources and that some sources of evidence are better than others. Some pieces of evidence sounded sciency but weren’t really science, and research studies were better evidence than someone’s personal experience. The most reliable source of evidence we have is a systematic review.
If you’re interested in one of the events we run for the public please get in touch k.banister@abdn.ac.uk
David Cooper, Jade Howard and Katie Banister