Introduction

Black Box exercise:

• Students are given a box that is solidly taped up and with a variety of contents (usually more than one in combination) inaccessible to sight or touch. Their task is to determine what the contents may be. By shaking, tilting, lifting and listening to the box they may form hypotheses about what they think the constituents are, or at least their general shape. They have access to a range of materials and spare boxes so that they may place objects within this spare box and see if they behave in a similar manner to their black box. They have no way of knowing if the test materials provided are actually samples of the ones inside the black boxes. In this manner hypotheses can be tested and models made of the contents of the black box. Communication with other students in a group can allow models to be compared and ideas to be exchanged. Students can observe their own tendencies to support their own hypotheses above those of others. Critically, the box may never be opened to determine its actual contents, showing that, in the real world, science operates without complete certainty and is always open to models that may better explain experimental findings.

Discussion questions:

a. What is science?

b. Are there different types of science?

c. What is the difference between pure science, applied science and technology?

d. Is science good or bad?

e. Do scientists work together and collaborate?

f. How is science disseminated? How do scientists communicate and publish their work?

g. Where do scientists work?

h. Who funds the scientists?

i. Do the funders decide what scientists should do? How do funders make their decisions? Do scientists have a role in obtaining funding?

j. How do scientists work?