Teachers and experts share their secrets on using the news to enrich science classes

By Andrew Bridges

Web edition: July 30, 2012

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Currents events bring the outside world into the science classroom. They make lessons both more effective and more relevant, teachers find.

Credit: sjlocke/iStockphoto

Making current events a routine part of science instruction can help reinvigorate student interest in the subject, say teachers and academic experts. 

“For me, current events are one way to engage young people in real-world discussions of the applicability of science,” says Robert Simmons, a professor in the education department of Loyola University Maryland and a former middle-school science teacher. “Students have asked me, ‘Why are we learning this?’ If we cannot answer that question, we need to go back to the drawing board and figure it out. The answer cannot be, ‘Because it’s on the test.’”

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