Do industries influence government regulatory agencies?

Suitable for secondary and high schools, and college, this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, school clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS3, KS4 and KS5 politics, citizenship, sociology, philosophy and ethics.

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

• How much influence do industries have over the regulatory agencies responsible for policing these same industries? This is what Dr Eva Heims at the University of York is hoping to discover, and it may be less than the media would have us believe.

• This resource also contains an interview with Eva about her career path. If your students (or you) have questions for Eva, you/they can send them to her online. All you 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). Eva will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Eva’s research.

• The animation summarises the key points made in the article, making it a fantastic resource to use in the classroom or at home. There is also a script to accompany the animation.

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).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!