Understanding the language of science through the science of language

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 languages and science.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Laura Wagner, at The Ohio State University, and Dr Sudha Arunachalam, at New York University. They are language scientists who have devised a project to allow the public to conduct their own language science research while learning about the scientific method.

• This resource also contains interviews with Laura, Sudha and other team members and offers an insight into careers in language science. If your students have questions for Laura and Sudha, they can send them to them online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Laura and Sudha will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Laura and Sudha’s research and challenges them to design their own language science experiments.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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