Learning intention & success criteria
Learning intention: We are learning how science communication can inform individual viewpoints, community policies and regulations.
Success: Students can identify claim and evidence; judge source and communication quality; explain how audience and purpose affect a message; distinguish policy from regulation; and trace how communicated evidence may influence a decision without claiming science automatically determines policy.
Explicit teaching — the communication chain
Research/evidence → communicator + purpose → message/representation → audience interpretation → viewpoint/discussion → policy or regulation.
At every step ask: What evidence is visible? Who produced it? For whom? What uncertainty is stated? What has been simplified or omitted?
An agreed course, plan or framework. It may guide action without itself being an enforceable law.
An enforceable rule. Scientific evidence may justify the risk being managed, but legal and community processes determine the rule.
Modelled example — headline versus evidence
Evidence: monitored fish abundance falls from 100 to 55 index units over five years.
Weak headline: “Fishing will make the species extinct next year.”
Model response: The evidence supports a substantial decline in monitored abundance. It does not by itself establish the cause, predict extinction next year or prove one particular regulation is required. A responsible message would show the data source, dates, uncertainty and other relevant evidence.
Reliability checks
- Provenance/expertise: Who produced the evidence and what expertise or method sits behind it?
- Currency: Is the evidence recent enough for the claim?
- Visibility: Can the audience see methods, data, units and source?
- Corroboration: Do other reliable sources support the pattern?
- Uncertainty: Are ranges, limitations and sample size communicated?
- Causation: Does the design justify causal language, or only association?
- Persuasion: Are scale, headline, imagery or selective statistics exaggerating the evidence?
Guided comparison — same science, different audience
Methods, raw/processed data, uncertainty, assumptions and detailed limitations.
Plain language, clear map or visual, current timestamp, uncertainty explained and specific safe actions.
Key principle: simplify detail, not scientific meaning.
First Nations knowledge and two-way communication
When communication includes First Nations knowledge, use authorised, context-specific information, appropriate attribution and local cultural protocols. Do not generalise one community's knowledge to all First Nations Australians or assume public availability removes cultural authority.
Misconception check
- “A viral post is reliable because thousands shared it.” No — popularity is not evidence quality.
- “If experts disagree, science has no useful evidence.” No — identify shared evidence, the exact disagreement and remaining uncertainty.
- “A graph proves one variable caused another.” Not necessarily — association alone does not establish causation.
- “Science tells governments exactly which policy to choose.” No — science informs consequences; values, costs, law and stakeholder priorities also matter.
Quick checks & gradual release
I do: Evaluate a council water-restriction infographic for source, evidence, uncertainty and audience.
We do: Compare a technical agency report and a news headline about the same result. Identify what changed in framing.
You do: Rewrite “Scientists prove the policy works everywhere” into a defensible evidence-based sentence and explain whether the proposed response is a policy or regulation.
Exit ticket: In three sentences, trace evidence → communication → viewpoint → decision, and name one factor besides science that can affect the final policy.