Educator Guide: Ringing Black Holes and Brain Scans

December 1, 2025

About this guide

In this educator guide, you’ll find lesson plans matched to articles from the December issue of Science News that ask students to answer questions about gravitational waves and signal-to-noise ratios and to write a scientific question that could be answered using brain scanning technology.

This Guide Includes:

The toll of a black hole

Scientists measured the gravitational waves produced by two colliding black holes. Learn how familiar analogies, such as the toll of a bell, can help comprehend events at the intergalactic scale. Answer questions about the importance of signal-to-noise ratios in science. Then delve deeper by explaining how changing the individual values of a ratio affects the overall ratio.

Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) for any article

Use this claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) template with any Science News or Science News Explores article to have students identify and evaluate a scientific finding from a recent study.

The brain provides answers

Brain scans can help scientists answer questions about how the brain receives information from parts of the body and controls them. In this short activity, students will think of a question that could potentially be answered by brain scans and write a scientific question.