Ask big questions about science

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 

There are many ways to spark a conversation or debate within your group. By doing so in a structured way, it allows it to be less intimidating for the person running the activity, and keeps the young people more on track of their topic. Having these debates allow the young people to express their views, while also learning to respect and work with others who may have one different from their own. There are many ways to host a conversation like this and many topics to have them around. The following activity gives some ideas on how to run the conversations and some questions you can have the young people debate.  

Debate 

1. Split your young people into small groups  
2. Provide a list of topics and let your young people choose what topic to discuss. If they are struggling with this, the person running the activity can guide them on a topic to choose.
3. Have each group member decide what their view point is on the topic.  
   • If the young people don't immediately know their view point, the person running the activity could allow them to move between the two groups until they find the viewpoint they feel most confident contributing towards.
4. You will then have 2 smaller groups and will be having the debate based on what side you pick.  
5. Give each group questions to ask themselves when considering how to argue their point of view. Give them 20 minutes to construct their argument.   
   • Allow groups to record their thoughts in whatever means works best for them. Some examples include recording ideas on white boards or scrap paper.
6. Gather everyone together and sit in a space. Invite each group up to argue their case. After each topic has been argued for and against, ask everyone to vote for who they agree with.  This could be done by show of hands or moving to different sides of the room. Additionally, if time allows you could have other groups add their viewpoints to the discussion.

Talk Show 

1. Split the young people into small groups.  
2. Provide a list of topics and let each group pick a topic to discuss. 
   • If the young people don't immediately know their view point, the person running the activity could allow them to move between the groups until they find the viewpoint they feel most confident contributing towards. 
3. Have the groups pretend they are on a talk show and discuss their topic.  
4. The groups can format it where they all take turns speaking to give their opinion, or you could use a more traditional format with a host and guests, so that members of the group are guided by a moderator.  

Questions to ask 

• Would it be more ethical for mankind if we stopped all scientific experiments? 
• Can a human have a conversation with an animal?  
• Is it more ethical to test on animals than humans? 
• What makes for good evidence – asking one person, asking fifty people?  
• Should intellectual resources be directed at learning about the digestive system of the dung beetle? Counting stars? Nasa space travel? F1 racing engineering?
• What makes for a worthwhile science project? 
• Imagine we knew all the answers to all the scientific questions. Would that help us be better people?  
• Does my doctor know my body better than I do? 
• How many white swans do you have to see before you know that all swans are white? 
• Do you know that the Earth is round? How do you know? Should you believe what others tell you over the evidence of your own eyes? 
• Does this lightbulb give out light or suck in darkness? How do we decide? 
• If we destroy planet Earth, would it be OK for us to just move to Mars? 
• Would the world be better off if humans became extinct? 
• Do scientists discover facts or create explanations of observable things we already knew about?