Bad Science!
What is Bad Science?
Bad Science is a book, a newspaper column in the Guardian and a website by Ben Goldacre, an award-winning writer and broadcaster who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims made by scaremongering journalists, dodgy government reports, evil pharmaceutical corporations, PR companies and quacks. It promotes a healthy scepticism as a way of detecting powerful and effective uses of science and misuses and abuses.
How Collins is using ‘Bad Science’ in our New GCSE Science course
Ed Walsh, Science Advisor for Cornwall Learning, has taken eight of the case studies from the book and turned them into lessons aimed at GCSE level students. The lessons are designed to engage and excite students and encourage them to think for themselves. Pupils in secondary schools are in many cases very capable of understanding the ‘Bad Science’ approach and making good use of it themselves. Their grasp of scientific concepts and their enquiring minds mean that Bad Science is good for school science.
Y9 1 from Kenny Barnes on Vimeo.
See Bad Science lessons in action at Humphry Davy School in Penzance!
The “Bad Science is good for school science” project is a partnership between:
Ben Goldacre – author of Bad Science
Harper Collins – publishers of “Bad Science” and the Collins GCSE Science series
Cornwall Learning – developers of the teaching materials
NEW: 8 lesson plans and 'lessons-in-action' video