Instructor’s Guide
Lesson Plan for Week 2: SCIENTIFIC PROCESS
Class 1: “Science vs. Pseudoscience”
 I will begin the class by discussing the New York Times article “Anyone out there?”, as
an opportunity to review key concepts from previous week.
I plan to start with asking students questions from the article (get them involved): Is it
scarier to be alone in the Universe or not to be alone? Further questions to prompt
discussion: What was the method proposed to start an active search for extra-terrestrial
intelligence, rather than just pondering about the question? Is the search for extraterrestrial life science? What is science? Science is a quest for understanding the world,
observations around us and an attempt to predict future observations. It’s an outcome of
active and curious nature of human mind.
Time allocated on discussion motivated by the article: ~ 15 minutes
 I will next follow my lecture notes (please see scanned documents and videos), which
complement the textbook (Ch. 1) reading. Here are some of the questions/topics that I
will address:
a) What is a theory, what is a scientific law?
b) The difference between science, nonscience, and pseudoscience.
c) Pseudoscience example: The story of “Phrenology”
d) I will briefly talk about the article “Publish or Perish” in journal “Nature” from January
2010 about how scientific community strongly condemns falsification of the data.
e) Scientists are healthy skeptics. The results of scientific investigation are described
and presented in the form of a journal article, which undergoes a formal review by
colleague-experts in the field. Fortunately, in most scientific fields generalized
skepticism is sufficiently strong that surprising results are tested many times.
Example: report on “Arsenic based bacteria”
Time allocated: ~ 1 hour
Class 2: “Mathematical & Quantitative Skills”
 I will follow my lecture notes (please see scanned documents and videos), which
complement the textbook reading (Appendix A: Mathematical Review). Here are some of
the questions/topics that I will address:
a) Scientific notation & orders of magnitude;
b) Conversion of units;
c) Sense of Scale;
Time allocated: ~ 35 minutes
 Activity: Cookie Activity
Please see the posted instructions
Time allocated: ~ 20 minutes
d) Graphs (scatter plot, line graph, histogram, bar graph, log-based graph);
e) Average, Error Bars (Standard Deviation, Standard Error) and confidence levels;
Time allocated: ~ 25 minutes
Key Concepts for Week-2
(what students need to know, as they will be tested on this material):
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Definition of Theory and Scientific Law
Distinction between Science, Nonscience, and Pseudoscience
Providing examples of Pseudoscience
Recalling the importance of a peer-review process in science
Scientific notation, orders of magnitude
Conversion of units
Sense of Scale
Graphical representation of data
Average, error bars and confidence levels
Note: please remind your students that a more elaborate knowledge on each of these
concepts is required, as covered in class