you should be accomplishing the two asks: (1) describe the theory and research presented in the scientific paper you read (answer questions such as: what is the main idea of the paper? What are the main research findings supporting this idea? What methods did the researcher use to support their findings?), and (2) explain how that theory and research can be applied to the applied problem below (explain what the person facing the applied challenge might do differently if they knew about the theory and research in the paper). You should spend about an equal amount of space on each of the two tasks; your paper should have about 2 pages describing the theory and research that is presented in the relevant scientific paper, and about 2 pages explaining how the scientific information might be used to solve the applied problem.
(Topic)
Neighborhoods and Child Development
Suppose you are a newly elected member of the United States Congress, and your Congressional district is relatively poor, that is, lower than average in terms of socioeconomic status and the resources available to citizens. You think that the poverty of your Congressional district is harming the lives of children and youth. So your first act as a Congressperson is to give a speech arguing for more resources to improve neighborhoods in your district. But some other Congressperson immediately gets up and says “Neighborhoods don’t make any difference at all. The reason people who live in
poor neighborhoods aren’t doing well has nothing to do with the neighborhoods at all. What’s really happening is that some people inherit lots of smarts, and they’re smart enough to move out of the bad neighborhoods, so the people left behind in the bad neighborhoods are the less smart people, who naturally do less well in life. Neighborhoods don’t matter at all.” What are you going to say in response? What scientific evidence indicates that neighborhoods actually do matter?
