Rationale of A2 Science in Society

Overview of the A2 course
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The choice of topics
The topics in the A2 course were chosen because they:

are likely to be of particular personal interest to students at this stage of their lives and are of major public concern
follow naturally from the topics in the AS course
are areas of frontier science where our understanding is changing in the light of new evidence.
are topics in which students can consider policy issues from national and international as well as personal perspectives
provide good opportunities to explore how science works
cover a range of types of science spanning the physical, biological and earth sciences.
allow a smaller number of topics to be covered in greater depth

Health and disease is an important theme of the AS course. In the A2 course the emphasis is on mental illness rather than infectious diseases. The effect of life-style on health arises in both the topic about cells, chemicals and the mind and in nature nurture. The use of epidemiology to study diseases is a key feature of the AS course and these ideas are also covered in more detail in these first two topics. In the A2 course the study of genetics is extended to explore the extent to which human behaviour is genetically determined.

Ethical issues arise in several topics but particularly in watching the brain working where the range of physical-science techniques that scientists have developed to study how our brains work raise new dilemmas, including end-of-life issues.

The topics of global climate change and energy futures raise major policy issues with international dimensions. Both develop naturally from the study of transport issues in the AS course.

The final topic engages with the issue sustainable development through an exploration of biodiversity. It builds on the study of evolution in the AS course.

What makes it A2?
Progression from AS to A2 increases the level of demand in a number of ways. At A2 students are expected to:

learn a limited number of new science explanations that go beyond those they have met in more elementary courses (such as GCSE)
revisit the ideas about how science works that they met in the AS course in more depth,
extend the range of ideas about how science work to include new ideas such as scientific modelling and the more detailed interpretation of statistics
move decision-making from mainly personal contexts to more general policy issues nationally and internationally
recognise general principles in information about a topic
show greater sophistication in the arguments they put forward
respond to less structured questions in written papers with more extended responses.

Keeping the course topical
In a Science in Society course it is important that the teaching can respond to important new scientific developments as they arise and not be limited to those included in the specification. In the AS course this is possible through the study of a topical issue and the critical account of scientific reading.

In the A2 course the case study of unit 4 allows the second year of the programme to feature new topical issues. This is illustrated by the sample case study on the AQA web site which is about the possible risks and benefits of applying nanotechnology to cosmetics. Students will practice necessary skills on other case studies within each topic .

Teaching and learning
The approach to teaching and learning suggested on this web site assume that teachers will not be experts in the scientific topics. Some of the lesson activities are very similar to those in the schemes of work for the AS course. However, for each topic we offer a structured episode of problem-based learning expected to last for up to four hours of class time.

Also on this web site you will find at least one case study in the resources for each topic. These are in the style of the AQA unit 4 case studies but designed to teach part of the course content as well as to develop skills. The teaching-and-learning case studies have been planned progressively so that those for the earlier parts of the course are simpler while those at the end of the course match the standard needed for the unit 4 examination.

Last updated: 3 December 2009