Imagine saving just one of the 23,000 species threatened with extinction. Students studying endangered species in a general life science course faced the decision of which species to save as a summative assignment in a unit on scientific explanation and argumentation. They used the claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER) framework in which students…

People are regularly confronted with environmental and science-related issues presented to them in newspapers, on television, or even in their own doctor's office. Often the information they use to inform their decisions on matters of science may be ambiguous and contradictory. This article presents an activity that investigates how students deal…