Overview

This course aims to broaden the curriculum by giving arts, humanities and science students the opportunity to reflect on scientific issues in a wider context than in a specialist science course.

The nature of the course encourages a wide range of skills such as debating and independent research, and students will learn to evaluate information in order to make informed decisions about issues related to science. The skills developed here will have a wide application in other subject areas.

The course has three main strands:

• Teaching topics
  The topics cover issues in the life sciences and in the physical sciences, which may be in a topical or historic context.

• Ideas about science
  Students develop their understanding of the nature of science in the context of the teaching topics, with reflection on how science impacts on society.

• Science explanations
  These are the big ideas in science which help to make sense of the issues and the world around us. Work on this course should help students to increase their understanding of the key ideas and models which they have met in earlier science courses such as GCSE.