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NOTE: While this scenario is placed in a newspaper context, the issues addressed can be applied across media.

The following scenario has been created based on exercises in our Traveling Curriculum program. Hypothetical scenarios like this one are posed to small groups and further explored in large group discussions.

As we tell participants in Curriculum workshops, this is your opportunity to push the boundaries and be creative. There's no deadline, no budget pressures and no one reading over your shoulder.

Read through the scenario and consider the following questions. You might want to use a piece of scrap paper for notes.

1. How would you approach this story?
2. Do you think a story should be done at all?
3. What members of your community might this situation affect? How do you reach them?
4. Who are your sources? Where might you find sources?

Evolution vs. Creationism

You write for a small metropolitan newspaper. Many of your colleagues have recently been inundated with letters and e-mails from angry readers. Your state Board of Education has been considering the passage of a new statewide science curriculum that will require the teaching of evolution in all public high schools; some schools have eliminated all references to evolution. Official comments from the board indicate that the decision is based on growing concern that students graduating from high schools without such teaching will be unable to compete for places in college science and pre-medical programs.

"We're sending the young people of our state out with one arm tied behind their back," one proponent of the change said in a recent press conference. "Who's going to give a science scholarship to a student who's never heard of Charles Darwin?"

Your paper has published items on all sides of the issue. Last week it published an op-ed written by a professor from State University, who claimed that evolution is simply not a proven scientific fact. "It is only a theory and will most likely never be anything more," he wrote.

Another columnist pulled no punches, referring to the opponents of this measure as "scientifically illiterate Fundamentalists who want to drive your state back to the Stone Age." Letters to the Editor from both sides have used similarly strong language.

Your editor has realized that the situation has reached a critical stage. The State Board's vote is coming up in a few days. People on both sides of the issue are angry, and it seems the newspaper, by giving both sides opportunities to speak, has wedged itself in the middle of the controversy. The editor tells you to pull together a team from your paper to come up with "a package or something…anything!" to put this situation in proper perspective and inform your readers-- not simply fuel the fire.

As you head out he hands you a news release sent to him by a lobbyist organization:

FOUR OUT OF FIVE COLLEGE GRADUATES
ENDORSE EVOLUTION TEACHING IN SCHOOL CURRICULUMS

A NEW STUDY CONDUCTED BY THE MILLER ORGANIZATION FOUND THAT 80% OF COLLEGE GRADUATES APPROVE OF THE REINTRODUCTION OF EVOLUTION IN HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOMS. 50% OF INDIVIDUALS WITH ONLY A HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION BELIEVE GOD CREATED HUMANS IN THEIR PRESENT FORM.

IN A PHONE POLL, 2, 612 STATE RESIDENTS WERE ASKED: DO YOU BELIEVE EVOLUTION SHOULD BE PUT BACK INTO PUBLIC SCHOOL CURRICULUMS?

STRONGLY FAVOR:	48%
SOMEWHAT FAVOR:	12%
STRONGLY OPPOSE:	18%
SOMEWHAT OPPOSE:	12%
UNDECIDED:	10%

 

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