Mobiles: L2: What is the risk of using a mobile phone?
It is usually through the newspapers that we first find out about new scientific research, and we tend to accept uncritically what is written by harried reporters under tight deadlines. Even when the science is clean and factual, it can be progressively spun and refocused both deliberately and unconsciously to produce a change of emphasis, without any identifiable distortion of the real scientific conclusions.
Starter
Students write down the following on a sheet of A3 paper:
- Uses of mobile phones e.g. communication across the world; sending and receiving text messages; keeping in touch with family and friends; photo messaging; multimedia messaging etc.
- Reflecting on the past how people communicated before the days of mobile phones.
Main Activity
The following information (Resource 3) on the pros and cons on mobile phones can be found on the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/mobilephones/index.shtml
Now get students to undertake the measuring the radiation from mobile phones following the worksheet (Resource 4). This will take about 25 minutes. You will need a Microwave detector (COM Environmental Microwave Monitor) for each group. Students can use their own mobile phones using different brands of mobiles would be good.
Plenary
Ask the following questions.
- Do mobile phones give off radiation?
- When is the radiation level the highest making a call, receiving a call, sending a text message, as the call is being connected?
End the lesson with a short discussion of how new technologies create new risks and health hazards. This would be the starting point of the next lesson.
Go to Lesson 3
Downloads
Mobile phones: Lesson 2 (
, 36 KB)Mobile phones: Resource 3 (
, 46 KB)Mobile phones: Resource 4 (
, 36 KB)