M1A2: Your Science Tool Kit - Evaluating Scientific MessagesWhether we read newspapers, news magazines, blogs, or watch TV, we find media reports about science. Many of these same sources contain adve

M1A2: Your Science Tool Kit - Evaluating Scientific Messages

Whether we read newspapers, news magazines, blogs, or watch TV, we find media reports about science. Many of these same sources contain advertising that promotes products created through scientific advances, most often new medications or new entertainment devices. Science also influences our laws and public policies. The addition of ethanol to gasoline, food processing and shipping, and energy saving methods, such as solar panels, are examples of how science informs public policy.

Remember Gary Gutting’s editorial (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. from the NY Times, in which Gutting claims that news reports that say “studies show” are often tentative or likely to be false and should be labeled as such in the news media. Do not assume that what you read is always accurate, whether it is a news article or advertising. The purpose of this activity is to learn to locate basic information about scientific results within news reports.

Your Science Tool Kit is a set of questions based on Understanding Science 101 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and is one way you can help yourself understand a news report about science. Your analysis in this STK will focus on the Science Daily article “Complete rest until symptom-free after concussion may not be best for recovery.”

Completing this activity will assist you in mastering Module Level Outcome 2.

First:

• Read the news article from Science Daily. (2016). “Complete rest until symptom-free after concussion may not be best for recovery. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.”
• Next, you will want to read the scientific abstract of this article that was the source for the report in the Science News from the American Academies of Pediatrics.
  • Halstead, M. E. et al. (2010). Sports-related concussion in children and adolescents (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. The Journal Pediatrics, Volume 126, issue 3
• Then, read this abstract from a respected scientific/medical journal about this topic for comparison. Please be aware that these were published just a few years ago, before the article in Science Daily and presentation at the AAP, which it came from. You should consider how research can change the ideas and procedures used in medicine and science.
  • Harmon, K. G. et al (2013). American Medical Society for Sports Medicine position statement: Concussion in sport (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 47 : 15-26

Next, submit the following:

• Use this abbreviated version of the Science Tool Kit template (download template [DOCX, File size 24.3 KB] to answer questions about the news article. Submit your answers to your instructor for grading and feedback.

To prepare to use the Science Toolkit properly: Here is an example news article from the LA Times and the Science Tool Kit analysis of this article.

An article in the news media about a scientific study is often the result of a press release from a university, research laboratory, scientific journal, or from a scientific meeting. For example, the Los Angeles Times article, Month of Conception Can Affect Child's Health at Birth (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. is based on a scientific paper, Within-Mother Analysis of Seasonal Patterns in Health at Birth (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. by Drs. Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt from Princeton University, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most prestigious journals in all of science.

• Read the LA Time article Month of Conception Can Affect Child's Health at Birth (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
• Review this example of a completed Your Science Tool Kit analysis [DOCX, File size 23.4 KB] of this LA Times article on birth month.
• Also review the Library Tip Sheet on identifying a "Peer Reviewed" article (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. [PDF, File size 305.76 KB].

You are also encouraged to do your own research through our library on the topic. Do not forget to include in-text citations and complete APA style references for all sources. The Excelsior Library Citation Tip Sheets and Resources (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. will be a helpful guide. You may also wish to use a citation generator – you just insert the information, and it creates the citation in the format you indicate (MLA or APA, for example). Here are 3 citation generators to choose from:

1. Citation Machine (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
2. Bibme (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
3. EasyBib (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.