Bronx HS of Science Research Consortium

Research Literacy

Introduction: You are one of the six hundred newly recruited research associates at The Bronx H. S. of Science Research Consortium. As you know we have an ongoing contract with the United States to provide high caliber research personnel for the nation. The Congressional Research Service, one of our potential clients, provides nonpartisan research, analysis, and information to Members of Congress so that they may make informed policy decisions. Your task is to help CRS with scientific research as requests come in from senators and congress members.

The Task: As a part of your initial training you are to pursue a scientific topic and become the in house expert on that topic. You are to familiarize yourself with at least one primary source of scientific information and investigate associated public policy issues. You are to study the impact of public policies adopted in the past and make new policy recommendations. You will be using Public Policy Analyst to help you through the process. Your final product will be a Power Point presentation of thirty slides. You will make a ten minute presentation of your findings and recommendations in front of your peers.

The Process:

Go through the Tuesday Science Times for the last one year (available in our research library, the librarian would be available to help you with your searches for this project or you can go to www.nytimes.com ).
Pick a topic of interest to you in which you would like to become the in house expert. Select a topic that has public policy implications.
Based on your interest in a particular topic, research teams will be organized. You will collaborate with two other researchers in your group.
Your group will have to locate a primary source on that topic of interest.
Every member of the group should become familiar with the background and context of that primary source.
Research public policy issues associated with the topic. Familiarize yourselves with public policy adopted at the local, state or federal level and the effectiveness of those policies.

Draft a new or modified public policy statement and present evidence to support your position.
Your final task will be to present the evidence to your peers in the form of a power point presentation and convince them that it is a worthy issue and that your policy recommendations will have a positive impact.

Presentation Requirements:

You will be presenting the work described in the primary source your group has selected. Your challenges are, first, to understand the primary source and related public policy issues, and second, to make it understandable and interesting to your peers. Your presentation must contain the following sections.

1. Title of your presentation (not necessarily the title of your paper) and group members

2. Title, authors, and affiliations of your primary source article

3. Abstract – A brief summary of the entire presentation (no more than 100 words).

4. Introduction – Background information about your topic, including information from secondary sources. Give enough explanation and definitions for your classmates to understand the experiment and why it was done

5. The problem and hypothesis of the experiment

6. Materials and methods – An explanation of equipment and procedures.

7. Results and calculations – Data and analyses, presented in tables and/or graphs, and summarized in words.

8. Discussion and conclusions – The results compared to the hypothesis and to other work, conclusions, the limitations of the work, and recommendations for future work.

9. Public policy implications – How this experiment relates to societal decisions. Draft a new or modified public policy statement and present evidence to support your position

10. Works cited – Your bibliography, including all primary and secondary sources.

Only the abstract should be written in complete sentences. All other portions should use an abbreviated style (e.g., in bullets) suitable for presentations.

Your Works Cited section and citations in the rest of the presentation must follow the MLA format, which will be explained in a library session in November. To be ready, make sure you get complete information (title, authors, magazine, newspaper, etc.) about all sources.

The entire group must participate in developing, finalizing, and presenting the project. You will have some class time to work together, but you will also have to work outside of class to finish. If you do not have PowerPoint at home, you may create text using any word processing program, which can be easily imported into PowerPoint.

Each member of the group must take a turn speaking during the presentation. Design your PowerPoint slides so that the student can read the slide aloud, and then add a few brief comments and/or answer questions. On the day of your presentation, you must turn in a statement of what each member of the group contributed to the project, and this will be taken into account in the grading.

Your peers watching the presentation will be given a rubric with which to grade the presentation. Their average scores will count towards the final evaluation for the project.

The Rubric:

		Maximum Points
Abstract
	Complete	5
	Well organized	5
	Clearly written	5
Introduction
	Background - complete and correct	5
	Importance and feasibility of problem and hypothesis	5
	Originality of problem and hypothesis	5
Materials and Methods
	Appropriateness of variables and controls	5
	Appropriateness of materials and measurements	5
	Clarity of presentation	5
Results and Calculations
	Appropriateness of tables, graphs, etc.	5
	Clarity of presentation	5
	Accuracy of analysis	5
Discussion and Conclusions
	Clarity of presentation	5
	Connection to the study	5
	Completeness	5

Works Cited		5
Overall presentation
	Attractiveness	5
	Organization and coherence	5
	Appropriate speaking	10
	Total	100

Research Literacy

Well organized