Greatest Scientist Contest in Middle School Perks Students Higher Order Thinking

     In Middle School Science this past week, both classes wrestled with a playoff pool pitting one famous historical scientist against another. Each student had chosen a scientist to research and came prepared to share their scientist's accomplishments. This is typical school knowledge acquisition--"Go out and learn about a scientist and share this with the class."

     What was different here was that each student/scientist was up against another student/scientist--Galileo vs. Copernicus, Newton vs. Edison, Einstein vs. Kepler. Based on the student presentations, the class voted on the round's winner, who was then into the next round against another winner. In the end, Ben Franklin was the big winner in one class (maybe a tribute to the presenter's skillful and compelling presentation), with Thales winning in the other class.

     While it was gratifying to see the excitement of the students (with one ringleader, for example, announcing the match-ups--"Next up, Liebnitz against Curie!" (and the crowd goes wild!), the real power in this activity was  the level of thinking this led to, often outside of class time.

      Why were all the winners the ones who came from long ago? Maybe it was because they established the foundations for the science that came subsequently?

     Does Edison count as a scientist? Is an inventor a scientist? Are all inventors scientists?

     Are Newton's laws more important than the internet?

     How could Franklin beat Copernicus?

     How do you even decide what is the "most important scientist"?

     To cite the educational theory of Bloom's taxonomy, these are "higher order" questions requiring analysis and evaluation. Making judgments, comparing, advocating, defending--these are more challenging levels of thinking needed for the world of the 21st century, when  information is easy to come by, but making sense of it all it the real trick.