Unit 08 · Health Decisions, Media & Consumer Science
The year closes where health science meets everyday life: the flood of health claims in the news, on labels, and in advertising — and how to reason about them with evidence instead of taking them at face value. This unit covers reading a health claim critically, telling the difference between correlation and causation, separating marketing from real evidence, and why a bottle of supplements can’t stand in for a balanced diet built from whole food. Mastery means you can meet a bold headline calmly and ask the right questions of it.
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading a health claim critically | Accepts a health claim at face value and cannot say what would make it trustworthy. | Senses a claim needs checking but cannot name what evidence to look for. | Meets a health claim by asking who made it, what evidence backs it, and whether the source has something to sell. |
| Correlation vs. causation | Treats any headline linking two things as proof that one causes the other. | Has heard “correlation is not causation” but cannot apply it to a real headline. | Explains why a link between two things is not proof of cause, and names other explanations a headline might have missed. |
| Spotting marketing vs. evidence | Cannot tell an advertisement apart from an evidence-based recommendation. | Notices persuasion but cannot point to the specific tactic being used. | Separates marketing language from evidence — naming the tactic (testimonials, vague “studies show,” fear appeals) and what real support would look like instead. |
| Supplements vs. whole food | Assumes a supplement can simply replace the nutrients in a balanced diet. | Knows whole food matters but cannot explain what a supplement leaves out. | Explains why supplements can’t replace a balanced diet — whole food carries fiber, a mix of nutrients, and things we haven’t isolated — and treats “a pill fixes it” as a red flag. |
| Anchor lab (health-claim media-analysis case study) | Skips the case study or summarizes a claim without evaluating it. | Analyzes a claim but stops before weighing the evidence behind it. | Works a health-claim media-analysis case study end to end — tracing the claim to its source, weighing the evidence, and reaching an evidence-based verdict. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Treats the science as isolated facts; makes no cross-domain connection. | Names a link to history, reading, or writing but cannot defend why it matters. | Connects the unit to its anchor across History · Reading · Writing (plus chosen electives) — including the James Lind scurvy trial as the origin of evidence-based medicine — and defends why the connection matters. |
“The headline said people who drink green tea live longer — but that’s a link, not a cause; those people might just exercise more too. And the ad selling green-tea pills is marketing, not evidence. Whole food carries things a pill leaves out, so I’d want a real study before I believed the claim.”
“It was in the news, so it’s probably true. If a study found a link, that means it causes it, right? And the supplement says it replaces vegetables, so that’s the same thing.”
You demonstrate this unit through a health-claim media-analysis case study — taking a real headline or advertisement apart and defending an evidence-based verdict aloud — not a multiple-choice test. A criterion counts as mastered only when you can both analyze the claim and justify how you told evidence from marketing. Mastery is demonstrated, not awarded.
A 5-page clipboard packet — unit overview, key terms, the mastery rubric, anchor examples, and a score sheet you can print and grade against.