Safety, ethics and evidence boundary
Capstone work must remain low-risk and teacher/parent approved. No human-subject research, personal health/genetic data, biological culturing, animal manipulation, hazardous chemicals, mains electricity, weapons, or procedural gene editing. Public sources must be cited; private or sensitive locations/data must not be exposed.
Explicit science instruction
Capstone sources should be evaluated for expertise, method transparency, relevance, date, conflict of interest and whether claims trace to primary data. Government datasets, peer-reviewed research and transparent technical reports can complement community knowledge and local observations.
Every important design assumption should point to evidence or be labeled as an assumption.
Worked example with reasoning
A student finds three claims about habitat corridors. One is an unsourced promotional page, one a systematic review, and one a local wildlife-agency dataset. The latter two support different parts of the decision; the promotional page may identify a viewpoint but not establish effectiveness.
Guided question
Why can a source be trustworthy yet still irrelevant to the exact capstone question?
Independent work
- Collect at least five approved sources.
- Tag each claim as measurement, model, expert synthesis or stakeholder position.
- Record method and limitations.
- Identify two unsupported design assumptions.
Misconception check
Number of citations does not equal quality; repeated citations to the same underlying evidence are not independent confirmation.
Formative understanding check
What makes evidence directly relevant?
Worked response
It measures or tests variables, populations, conditions or mechanisms close to those in the capstone claim.
Open-book formative practice only; not an official mastery attempt or grade.
Mentor evidence conference
Ask Archaemenes to challenge the evidence, stakeholder assumptions, quantitative model, tradeoffs, and revision criteria.
Open ArchaemenesTeacher guidance
Foundation: use a source-quality table. Core: build a claim-evidence map. Extended: trace secondary claims back to primary evidence and identify dependency.
Preserve learning evidence
Keep data, design choices, corrections, stakeholder reasoning, and uncertainty in the matching Week 35 evidence field.