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Is it terminal for Teflon?

Learning objectives

Students will:
• understand about the scientific controversy surrounding the chemical PFOA
• critically evaluate evidence gathered from a wide variety of sources before presenting their own views about the issue
• be able to critically discuss and present their ideas about a scientific controversy

Try the activity

• Teflon teachers notes
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• teflon activity
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You will need Acrobat Reader installed to open the activity sheets.

Curriculum link

14 – 16 Chemical and material behaviour
6c new materials are made from natural resources by chemical reactions

Please see downloadable teachers notes for details of individual GCSE specifications.

Running the activity

Display page 1 then quickly introduce the scientific controversy surrounding PFOA and Teflon. Explain that PFOA is used to manufacture non-stick plastics like Teflon and that PFOA can also detected in the environment. You may wish to display items which contain Teflon – or even fry up bacon and eggs in a non-stick frying pan and ask them what the dangers are… (CARE – risk assessment required)!

Get students into groups and display page 2. Ask students to select the opinion they most agree with now, before seeing more evidence. Go through the card sort activity instructions.

Give each group a copy of page 3 and a set of cards made from pages 4 and 5. Get students to read each evidence card carefully before discussing it and deciding which pile to place it in. You may wish to further consolidate understanding by asking questions e.g. What is the controversy about? Where is PFOA used? Where is PFOA found? What is the link between PFOA and Teflon? Which piece of evidence would you trust the most? The least? Which pieces of evidence are likely to be more reliable, more accurate, have more bias? etc.

Finally, give students a copy of page 6 which allows them to state the character from page 2 that they most agree with, along with one piece of evidence to support the point of view, as well as the character they most disagree with.

You could ask some students to feedback their answers to the class or even get students with opposing views together in order to argue their point of view. You may also wish students to consider whether their final viewpoint has changed after completing the activity.

Differentiation – select only a few evidence cards for students to sort.

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