SCIE1001 Sydney Science 2050: Towards the Future

How SCIE1001 is assessed

The final examination is explicitly compulsory: students must sit it in order to pass the course. The retrieved outline does not state a minimum exam mark.

What SCIE1001 covers

The learning path moves from Assessment Map and Scientific Claim Workflow, through the problems opened by Values, Ethics and Evidence, to the synthesis required in Integrated Future Scenario and Exam Strategy.

It carries 6 credit points (roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total).

It is one unit taught by five different schools in blocks, and the assessment splits along the same seam: the Maths/Stats and Physics half is examined by a 45-minute in-class short-answer test in Week 5 (covering weeks 1-4) and a Phyphox smartphone experiment written up as a 500-word, maximum-two-figure report; the HPS/SOLES/Geosciences half is examined by the compulsory 'HPS Final Exam' covering only weeks 7-12. There is no essay.

The single largest block of marks is not an assessment in the usual sense — 18% comes from turning up to tutorials and talking, scored up to 2 marks a week with only your best 9 counting.

Assessment in SCIE1001 is distributed as follows: 35% final exam · 20% in-class test (Week 5) · 18% tutorial participation · 15% scientific report (Week 8) · 10% weekly short responses (weeks 7-12) · 2% early-feedback course quiz (Week 3)

The operational assessment conditions matter here.

1.5 hours, on campus during the formal exam period, AI prohibited, covering weeks 7-12 only.

Four parts worth 25% each: Part 1 = 6 multiple-choice, one from each of weeks 7-12; Parts 2, 3 and 4 = choose ONE of two short-answer questions (Part 2: week 7 or week 10; Part 3: week 8 or week 9; Part 4: week 11 or week 12), with roughly half-page responses expected.

What makes SCIE1001 demanding is concrete: Two places students lose marks for reasons unrelated to understanding.

First, the scientific report is marked on the science, not the writing. You will get no marks. The required figure must carry units, error bars, correct annotation and a caption stating the trend.

The final exam is a hurdle: Compulsory assessment; students must sit this exam in order to pass the course, restated on the Canvas timeline as 35% & compulsory.

Tutorial attendance is not itself compulsory (Is tutorial attendance mandatory? No, but you will need to attend in order to gain participation marks), but participation counts best 9 of 12 weeks (week 5 excluded because of the in-class test) and partial attendance forfeits the lot: In order to be eligible for any participation marks, you must attend the entirety of the tutorial.

For enrolment planning, None.

Corequisites: none. Prohibitions: none. Assumed knowledge: none.

The learning path moves from Assessment Map and Scientific Claim Workflow, through the problems opened by Values, Ethics and Evidence, to the synthesis required in Integrated Future Scenario and Exam Strategy.

Worked example: Sydney Science 2050: Towards the Future integrated response

Key terms

the demarcation problem (what unifies and distinguishes science)

The demarcation problem asks which features distinguish scientific inquiry and claims from non-science or pseudoscience, without assuming that one simple rule covers every discipline.

falsification

Falsification is the principle that a scientific claim should expose itself to observations that could show it to be false, rather than being compatible with every possible result.

p-value, p-hacking and the correct interpretation of conditional probability

A p-value is the probability, assuming a specified null model, of data at least as extreme as those observed; p-hacking selectively analyses or reports results to obtain significance and does not turn that conditional probability into the probability that the hypothesis is true.

reproducibility vs replicability vs robustness, and questionable research practices

Reproducibility obtains the same result from the same data and analysis, replicability tests the finding with new data, and robustness checks whether it survives reasonable analytical changes; questionable practices can undermine all three.

epistemic vs non-epistemic values, and the 'internal parts of science'

Epistemic values concern knowledge quality, such as accuracy and explanatory power, whereas non-epistemic values concern ethical, social or political priorities that can shape questions, methods and uses of evidence.

inductive risk

Inductive risk is the possibility of harm from accepting or rejecting a claim under uncertainty, making the consequences of error relevant to evidential standards.

the FLICC framework

FLICC classifies common techniques of science denial as fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry-picking and conspiracy theories.

feminist empiricism and standpoint theory / epistemic benefits of diversity

Feminist empiricism examines how bias can be corrected through stronger methods and critical communities, while standpoint theory argues that social position can reveal otherwise hidden relations; diversity can therefore improve collective inquiry.

SCIE1001 FAQ

How to study for the exam

Retrieve the unit map, practise the recurring method—evaluate scientific claims by linking evidence quality, uncertainty, reproducibility, values and communication to a real decision—on changed scenarios, and verify every operational assessment detail in the live institutional system.

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