GROUP 1

TOK Key Concepts

Read through the real-world examples below and think about which concept they
reflect. Note that each example can link to more than one concept. How many
connections you can make between the different examples?

Interpretation Explanation Evidence Objectivity

Power Culture Perspective Truth
Values Responsibility Justification Certainty

Real-world example Concept

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2183186/dolce-gabbana-
advert-completely-ruined-my-career-says-chinese

As Johnson blows public trust in the lockdown,

Drakeford must now lead by example
25th May 2020
A news service by the people of Wales for the people of Wales

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (left) in yesterday’s speech broadcast

on BBC One. Mark Drakeford (right), picture by the Welsh
Government.
https://nation.cymru/opinion/as-johnson-blows-public-trust-in-the-
lockdown-drakeford-must-now-lead-by-example/
 GROUP 2
TOK Key Concepts

Read through the real-world examples below and think about which concept they
reflect. Note that each example can link to more than one concept. How many
connections you can make between the different examples?

Interpretation Explanation Evidence Objectivity

Power Culture Perspective Truth
Values Responsibility Justification Certainty

Real-world example Concept

How COVID-19 exposed challenges

for technology in education
School doors around the world have been closed for
several months to contain the spread of the COVID-19
pandemic. During this crisis, we have seen an incredible
amount of large-scale efforts to use technology in support
of remote learning. At the same time, this crisis has
exposed the challenges for technology in education,
including many inequities starting at the lack of access to
computers and the internet.
https://www.gstic.org/inspiration/how-covid-19-has-exposed-the-challenges-
for-technology-in-education/

'First' Māori astronomy school in the

modern era opens in Bay of Plenty
13 Jul, 2020

The preservation of ancestral knowledge and the

protection of health and wellbeing of all is now
possible at a new Māori astronomy wananga.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-
times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=12347439
 GROUP 3
TOK Key Concepts

Read through the real-world examples below and think about which concept they
reflect. Note that each example can link to more than one concept. How many
connections you can make between the different examples?

Interpretation Explanation Evidence Objectivity

Power Culture Perspective Truth
Values Responsibility Justification Certainty

Real-world example Concept

Police across the US are training crime-

predicting AIs on falsified data
A new report shows how supposedly objective systems
can perpetuate corrupt policing practices.
February 13, 2019

Predictive policing algorithms are becoming common practice in

cities across the US. Though lack of transparency makes exact
statistics hard to pin down, PredPol, a leading vendor, boasts that
it helps “protect” 1 in 33 Americans. The software is often touted
as a way to help thinly stretched police departments make more
efficient, data-driven decisions.
technologyreview.com/2019/02/13/137444/predictive-policing-algorithms-
ai-crime-dirty-data
 GROUP 1

TOK Key Concepts

Read through the real-world examples below and think about which concept they
reflect. Note that each example can link to more than one concept. How many
connections you can make between the different examples?

Interpretation Explanation Evidence Objectivity

Power Culture Perspective Truth
Values Responsibility Justification Certainty

Real-world example Concept

The necessity of awe

In awe we hold fast to nature’s strangeness and
open up to the unknown. No wonder it’s central to
the scientific imagination
When a scientific paradigm breaks down, scientists need to
make a leap into the unknown. These are moments of
revolution, as identified by Thomas Kuhn in the 1960s, when
the scientists’ worldview becomes untenable and the agreed-
upon and accepted truths of a particular discipline are radically
called into question. Beloved theories are revealed to have been
built upon sand. Explanations that held up for hundreds of
years are now dismissed. A particular and productive way of
looking at the world turns out to be erroneous in its essentials.
The great scientific revolutions – such as those instigated by
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Einstein and Wegener
– are times of great uncertainty, when cool, disinterested reason
alone doesn’t help scientists move forward because so many of
their usual assumptions about how their scientific discipline is
done turn out to be flawed. So they need to make a leap, not
knowing where they will land. But how?
https://aeon.co/essays/how-awe-drives-scientists-to-make-a-leap-into-the-
unknown

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/09/bodies-donated-science-
left-eaten-rats-paris-university-centre
 GROUP 2
TOK Key Concepts

Read through the real-world examples below and think about which concept they
reflect. Note that each example can link to more than one concept. How many
connections you can make between the different examples?

Interpretation Explanation Evidence Objectivity

Power Culture Perspective Truth
Values Responsibility Justification Certainty

Real-world example Concept

Amid the global debate about race relations, colonialism and

slavery, some of the Europeans and Americans who made
their fortunes in trading human beings have seen their
legacies reassessed, their statues toppled and their names
removed from public buildings.
Nigerian journalist and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
writes that one of her ancestors sold slaves, but argues that
he should not be judged by today's standards or values.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53444752

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
 GROUP 3
TOK Key Concepts

Read through the real-world examples below and think about which concept they
reflect. Note that each example can link to more than one concept. How many
connections you can make between the different examples?

Interpretation Explanation Evidence Objectivity

Power Culture Perspective Truth
Values Responsibility Justification Certainty

Real-world example Concept

For the modern American reader, few lines in French literature are
as famous as the opening of Albert Camus’s “L’Étranger”:
“Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” Nitty-gritty tense issues aside,
the first sentence of “The Stranger” is so elementary that even a
schoolboy with a base knowledge of French could adequately
translate it. So why do the pros keep getting it wrong?
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-
the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be