Looking for the global perspective
Teasing out the global perspectives from science-based news items can be frustrating. Newspapers and broadcasts often do not present a full picture of science and its global dimensions, as copy space and time are always at a premium.
It is an enjoyable, but challenging, exercise to put yourself and your pupils into the mind of a news editor - trying to present as full a picture as possible, with facts and figures, and perhaps different perspectives - and yet be restricted by the copy space you have.
Try this out in the Activity on the right.
Activity Resources:
- Images
- Interactive
- Sound
- Text
- Video
Activity
In this activity, try with colleagues or pupils to construct your own popular newspaper article (Daily Mail or Metro style) of not more than 250 words.
- Click on the Text icon above and print the 'Tsunami statement cards' and 'Hydro statement cards' documents. Cut out the text boxes to make the statement cards. These statements, each with a word count, are extracts from a New Scientist magazine article on hydroelectricity; and from a Natural Environment Research Council magazine, Planet Earth, on tsunamis. The full texts are also provided in the pdf documents, 'Hydro's dirty secret' and 'After the Tsunami'.
- Arrange the statement cards to make a compelling and informative news article. You may delete words to help you keep within your word maximum.
- Discuss the reasons why you omitted some statements, and the effects this had on the finished article.
- Use the template from Activity 1 of this unit to judge the value and usefulness of your own article.
More information
This activity is based on the 'Every Word Counts' activity from The Newsroom Project at Queen's University, Belfast. Further details can be found in the two articles, 'Bringing newspaper reports into the classroom' and 'Beyond exhortation', under the Text icon above.
Further useful ideas for Directed Activities Related to Text (DARTs) can be found in the 'Science teaching and literacy part 2' article under the Text icon above.
