“Modern practice shows that new conceptions arrived at over time or through guided inquiry and student discourse are in fact stable and do in fact come to replace old conceptions” (Mason, 2006).

Engagement through application is my moto and therefore, as an educator I feel that it’s vitally important to expose my students to content-related real life situations as often as possible.  This brings us to a task I recently assigned my students which deals with current ethical issues in society.  The important thing is that each issue is one that young people hear about but don’t know a whole lot about except what they’ve been told.  I want me students to think for themselves and come up with conclusions as that’s what it means to be scientifically literate.  

By utilizing guided inquiry and research, every year my students complete a current issues culminating assignment for biology.  The issues surround ethical and moral beliefs and involves the students researching and presenting their topic in front of the class.  The topics range from cloning to ultrasound among 15 other possible topics.  The beauty of this project is that through presentations, each student is exposed to the other 16 topics and therefore, each student finishes the unit with a much greater understanding of issues they would have already been exposed but were mostly ignorant of.  This exposure teaches them to broaden their thoughts, learn to think for themselves and dispel many of their previously held beliefs.

Please view the Prezi presentation below, it was kindly donated by one of my students this year and shows exemplary effort, knowledge and ability within their topic.

If you would like this task FREE of charge, please click here.