These science debate topics are 132 questions with no settled answer, sorted by branch from space to how science is done. Each card gives an opening line for both sides, and every fact a line states is sourced.
Read the full guide
Pick a branch and a level
The branches are Space, Life science and genetics, Earth science, Energy and climate technology, Animals and research, Computing and AI, and How science is done. Easy suits middle school and Medium suits high school. The Hard cards are the science debate topics for college students: motions that need a source and a seminar's time.
Geology debate topics
Earth science holds them: mining the deep seabed, a human epoch on the geologic time scale, where nuclear waste goes, rebuilding on a flood plain and whether to publish an uncertain earthquake forecast.
Give out sides by seat, not by opinion. Arguing the side you did not pick is the skill.
The two lines on a card are arguments to start from. Ask every speaker for one piece of evidence the card does not give.
Questions and answers
What are good science debate topics for middle school?
Pick Easy: Should Pluto be called a planet again? Should every space mission have to bring its own junk home? Is a failed experiment still good science? They need no research, because every student already has a view.
What are the best science debate topics for high school?
Pick Medium: Should new nuclear power plants be built? Should scientists publish the computer code behind their results? Should the last Moon landing site be protected like a historic place? Each has a real cost on both sides.
Do the cards say which side is right?
No. Each card prints one opening line for Yes and one for No, and neither is the answer. Where a line states a fact, such as the 2006 decision on Pluto, the note under the list names where it was read.
Which topics are left out?
Medicine, diet and health, anything that sets science against a faith, party politics and named living people. The deck was written to be read out in a classroom.
Is a robot rover a better explorer than a human crew?A) Yes. The first rover reached Mars in 1997, and no rover needs air or food. B) No. A person notices what nobody thought to program.
Should a company own what it mines from an asteroid?A) Yes. Nobody will pay for the trip without a return. B) No. By treaty, space is explored and used for the benefit of all countries.
Should astronauts go to Mars before robots have brought samples back?A) Yes. People can decide on the spot what to pick up. B) No. Robots should scout first, with nobody put at risk.
Should countries be allowed to mine the Moon?A) Yes. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty leaves space free for all states to use. B) No. The same treaty says no nation may claim the Moon as its own.
Should every school own a telescope?A) Yes. Seeing a planet with your own eye beats ten diagrams. B) No. School happens in daylight, when there is little to see.
Should every space mission have to bring its own junk home?A) Yes. Whoever leaves litter in orbit should clear it up. B) No. The extra fuel would cancel good missions.
Should Pluto be called a planet again?A) Yes. It was listed as the ninth planet from 1930 until 2006. B) No. The 2006 definition treats every world the same way.
Should scientists search icy moons for life before going back to Mars?A) Yes. A hidden ocean may be the better place to look. B) No. We already know how to land and drive on Mars.
Should space agencies release all mission data to the public at once?A) Yes. The public paid for the mission. B) No. The team that built it has earned the first look.
Should space agencies spend more on telescopes than on crewed flights?A) Yes. A telescope sees farther than any crew will travel. B) No. People in space are what draws students into science.
Should the International Space Station be kept in orbit as a museum?A) Yes. By November 2025 crews had lived aboard for 25 years without a break. B) No. Old hardware in orbit gets in the way of newer craft.
Should the last Moon landing site be protected like a historic place?A) Yes. Apollo 17, in December 1972, was the Apollo program's last Moon landing. B) No. Under the Outer Space Treaty no nation owns that ground.
Should the next crews on the Moon stay for months instead of days?A) Yes. A long stay teaches what a short visit cannot. B) No. Short trips come first while so much is untested.
Should the night sky be protected from bright satellite trails?A) Yes. The sky belongs to everyone who looks up. B) No. Those satellites carry the internet to remote places.
Should tourists be allowed to fly to space?A) Yes. Paying passengers could help pay for new rockets. B) No. A launch is a lot of fuel for a few minutes of fun.
Should we beam messages into space to say where we are?A) Yes. Saying hello is how every friendship starts. B) No. We cannot know who is listening.
Should we launch a new probe to interstellar space, knowing the trip takes decades?A) Yes. Voyager 1 left in 1977 and crossed into interstellar space in August 2012. B) No. The team that launches it may never see the results.
Should we try to change another planet's climate so people can live there?A) Yes. A second home is worth the effort. B) No. We should not reshape a world we barely know.
Should whoever discovers a comet get to name it anything they like?A) Yes. Finders are namers. B) No. A name on every star chart should follow shared rules.
Life science and genetics 19
Is it right to grow meat from animal cells in a lab?A) Yes. It makes meat without raising a herd. B) No. Farms and ranches are a way of life worth keeping.
Should a company be allowed to patent a gene it found in nature?A) Yes. The search costs money, and a patent repays it. B) No. Nobody invented what nature made.
Should a newly found species get an everyday name as well as a Latin one?A) Yes. People protect what they can name. B) No. One scientific name avoids mix-ups between languages.
Should biology class spend more time outdoors than in the lab?A) Yes. Living things are best studied where they live. B) No. A lab has the tools to look closely.
Should farms be allowed to plant one variety of a crop and nothing else?A) Yes. One variety is simpler to plant, harvest and sell. B) No. One pest could take the whole field.
Should food grown from gene-edited seed carry a label?A) Yes. Shoppers have a right to know what they buy. B) No. A label should say what a food is, not how its seed was bred.
Should frozen cells of endangered animals be stored in case a species dies out?A) Yes. It keeps a door open. B) No. It tempts us to stop protecting the living ones.
Should fungi get as much time in science class as plants and animals?A) Yes. They are a whole kingdom that most lessons skip. B) No. Class time is short and the basics come first.
Should gene sequence data always be free for anyone to read?A) Yes. The Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, was an international effort. B) No. Whoever pays for the next project needs a return.
Should genes from wild plants belong to the country where the plants grow?A) Yes. A country should gain from what grows on its land. B) No. Knowledge about life should be shared by everyone.
Should invasive species be removed even after people have grown fond of them?A) Yes. The native species were there first. B) No. After enough years, a newcomer is part of the place.
Should people be allowed to clone a pet?A) Yes. In 1996 Dolly the sheep became the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. B) No. A clone shares the genes, not the memories or the bond.
Should pets that glow because of a borrowed gene be allowed?A) Yes. A new color is no different from breeding for spots. B) No. Changing an animal for looks alone goes too far.
Should scientists be allowed to build an organism with a fully artificial genome?A) Yes. Building one is the surest way to understand one. B) No. We should understand natural life before we write our own.
Should scientists edit the genes of crops so that they need less water?A) Yes. A crop that survives a dry year feeds people. B) No. A change could spread to wild plants and cannot be called back.
Should scientists release lab-bred insects to control crop pests?A) Yes. It could replace spraying whole fields. B) No. Once released, they cannot be recalled.
Should seed banks keep a copy of every crop on Earth?A) Yes. Svalbard's vault has kept duplicate seeds from around the world since 2008. B) No. The money would do more for crops growing in fields.
Should the location of a rare plant be kept secret, even from other scientists?A) Yes. A published map guides collectors straight to it. B) No. Science that cannot be checked is not finished.
Should we plant trees that are not native if they grow faster?A) Yes. A fast forest is better than a bare hill. B) No. Local wildlife is used to local trees.
Earth science 18
Is geology as important to learn as biology?A) Yes. Everything we build stands on rock. B) No. Living things change faster and touch daily life more.
Should a country mine its own rare metals instead of buying them abroad?A) Yes. Whoever uses the metals should live with the mine. B) No. Some places have richer ore and less to disturb.
Should a town be rebuilt on a flood plain after a flood?A) Yes. People's homes, jobs and history are there. B) No. The river will rise again.
Should an important fossil belong to a museum, not to whoever found it?A) Yes. In a museum, everyone can study it. B) No. Finders would stop reporting what they dig up.
Should beaches be rebuilt with trucked-in sand when the sea washes them away?A) Yes. A town's beach is its living. B) No. The sea will take the new sand as well.
Should caves with ancient formations be closed to visitors?A) Yes. A formation that took ages to grow can break in a second. B) No. People protect what they have seen.
Should earthquake alerts go to every phone, even if some are false alarms?A) Yes. A few seconds of warning matter. B) No. Too many false alarms teach people to ignore them.
Should every student learn to read a contour map?A) Yes. A screen cannot always show the shape of the land. B) No. A phone draws the route for you.
Should geologists name a new epoch for the age of humans?A) Yes. People have changed the rocks, the air and the seas. B) No. Geologists voted the Anthropocene proposal down in March 2024.
Should groundwater be shared by a region, not owned with the land above it?A) Yes. Water under the ground does not stop at a fence. B) No. Owners look after what is theirs.
Should mining the deep seabed for metals be allowed?A) Yes. The metals are needed, and no town sits beside the mine. B) No. Seafloor nodules take millions of years to form and will not grow back soon.
Should mountains and craters be named after people?A) Yes. A name honors the work of an explorer or scientist. B) No. A name that describes the place is more useful.
Should nuclear waste be stored deep underground?A) Yes. Deep rock keeps it far from people. B) No. Nobody can promise what happens over thousands of years.
Should old dams be taken down so that rivers run free?A) Yes. Fish could return to water they lost long ago. B) No. The dam still stores water and makes power.
Should people be allowed to build homes near an active volcano?A) Yes. It is their land and their choice. B) No. Rescuers are the ones who must go in afterwards.
Should scientists publish an earthquake forecast when they cannot be sure?A) Yes. People can decide for themselves what to do with a probability. B) No. No scientist has ever predicted a major earthquake, the USGS says.
Should visitors be allowed to take rocks and fossils home from public parks?A) Yes. A pocket fossil can start a lifelong hobby. B) No. If every visitor took one, none would be left.
Should we drill deep into Earth's crust just to learn what is there?A) Yes. Curiosity about our own planet needs no other reason. B) No. A drill hole that deep costs what many smaller studies cost.
Energy and climate technology 19
Is it better to save energy than to make more clean energy?A) Yes. The energy you never use needs no power plant. B) No. People will not give up comfort, so make it clean.
Should a country keep some fossil fuel plants as backup for windless nights?A) Yes. A grid needs power when the weather offers none. B) No. A backup that exists will be used.
Should a valley be flooded for a dam that makes clean electricity?A) Yes. Clean power for a whole region is worth one valley. B) No. A valley holds homes, farms and wildlife.
Should captured carbon dioxide be stored under the seabed?A) Yes. It is far from homes and from drinking water. B) No. A leak under the sea would be hard to find and to fix.
Should cities plant shade trees before they add air conditioning?A) Yes. A tree cools a street without a power bill. B) No. A tree takes years to grow, and the heat is here now.
Should every battery be built so that it can be taken apart and recycled?A) Yes. The metals inside are too useful to throw away. B) No. Buyers want small and cheap before they want recyclable.
Should every home have a display that shows its energy use as it happens?A) Yes. You cannot cut what you cannot see. B) No. One more screen will be ignored like the rest.
Should every town have free charging points for electric bikes?A) Yes. A free plug gets more people out of cars. B) No. Riders should pay for their own power.
Should hydrogen replace jet fuel even if tickets cost more?A) Yes. Flying should pay for the harm it does. B) No. Higher fares shut families out of travel.
Should machines that pull carbon dioxide from the air get public money?A) Yes. Cutting what we add is not enough if some can also be taken out. B) No. The money cuts more by stopping it at the source.
Should new gasoline cars stop being sold after a set year?A) Yes. A date gives carmakers and buyers time to plan. B) No. Drivers should switch when charging is ready where they live.
Should new nuclear power plants be built?A) Yes. A grid needs power that does not wait for wind or sun. B) No. We should not leave waste for our great-grandchildren to guard.
Should richer countries pay for clean energy in poorer ones?A) Yes. The air has no borders. B) No. Each country should choose and fund its own path.
Should scientists test ways to reflect sunlight and cool the planet?A) Yes. Knowing whether it works is better than guessing. B) No. A test over one region could change the weather in another.
Should solar farms be built on good farmland?A) Yes. Flat, open land is the easiest place to build them. B) No. Land that can grow food should grow food.
Should the heat from data centers be piped to warm nearby homes?A) Yes. Heat that is already made should not be wasted. B) No. Homes would depend on a business that might move away.
Should tidal power be built in bays where seals and seabirds live?A) Yes. The tide is power that arrives on schedule. B) No. A bay full of wildlife is not an empty site.
Should we burn trash to make electricity?A) Yes. It beats burying it. B) No. It makes recycling look optional.
Should wind turbines be built where they change a well-loved view?A) Yes. Clean power is worth a changed skyline. B) No. Some landscapes should be left as they are.
Animals and research 17
Is it right to teach an ape sign language for research?A) Yes. It is the nearest we have come to asking an animal what it thinks. B) No. It raises an ape for a life that is neither wild nor human.
Should a scientist help a wild animal in trouble while studying it?A) Yes. Kindness comes before the notebook. B) No. Stepping in changes the very thing being studied.
Should an animal be moved to another country to save its species?A) Yes. A species matters more than a map. B) No. A newcomer can upset the wildlife already there.
Should an octopus get the same protection in a lab as a mouse?A) Yes. An animal that solves puzzles deserves care. B) No. Rules should follow evidence, not how clever an animal looks.
Should animals be sent on space missions?A) Yes. It is how we learn whether a journey is safe for people. B) No. An animal cannot agree to the risk.
Should aquariums let visitors touch the animals in a touch tank?A) Yes. One gentle touch can start a lifelong interest. B) No. An animal is not an exhibit to handle.
Should drones be used to count wildlife?A) Yes. A count from the air is quick, and nobody walks through the nests. B) No. The noise can scare the animals being counted.
Should feeding wild birds in the yard be encouraged?A) Yes. A feeder brings nature to the window. B) No. Wild birds should find wild food.
Should fishing be banned in part of the sea so that scientists can study untouched water?A) Yes. Without one untouched area, there is nothing to compare with. B) No. Fishing families depend on those waters.
Should kids be allowed to take tadpoles from a pond to watch them grow?A) Yes. Watching legs appear is a lesson nobody forgets. B) No. Wild animals belong where they hatched.
Should lab animals be found homes as pets when a study ends?A) Yes. They have earned a quiet life. B) No. An animal raised in a lab may not suit a home.
Should new cosmetics be tested on animals?A) Yes. A product should be tested before people use it. B) No. Looking good is not worth an animal's distress.
Should rare animals be bred in captivity and then released?A) Yes. A species with a few dozen left needs help. B) No. Animals raised by people may not cope in the wild.
Should research on great apes be banned?A) Yes. Apes are too much like us to be kept for study. B) No. Some questions about minds can only be asked of our nearest relatives.
Should science classes dissect real animals?A) Yes. A real specimen teaches what a screen cannot. B) No. A model shows the same parts and no animal is used.
Should scientists give names to the animals they study?A) Yes. A name helps the public care. B) No. A number keeps the science even-handed.
Should wild animals be fitted with tracking collars?A) Yes. We cannot protect a herd we cannot find. B) No. A wild animal should not have to carry our equipment.
Computing and AI 19
Is a game still worth mastering once a computer plays it better?A) Yes. A computer beat the world chess champion in 1997, and people still play. B) No. Knowing a machine holds the best move takes the mystery out.
Should a computer that passes for a person in conversation be called intelligent?A) Yes. That was the test proposed in 1950, and it is a fair one. B) No. Imitating a person is not the same as understanding.
Should a fingerprint or face scan replace passwords?A) Yes. Nobody forgets a fingerprint. B) No. A password can be changed, and a fingerprint cannot.
Should a paper written with AI help have to say so?A) Yes. Readers should know who or what did the work. B) No. Nobody lists their spell-checker.
Should a quantum computer be funded before anyone knows what it will be used for?A) Yes. Uses tend to turn up after the tool exists. B) No. Public money should follow a clear need.
Should a robot be allowed to judge a science fair?A) Yes. A robot scores every project by the same list. B) No. A judge should be able to be surprised.
Should a robot have an off switch that anyone nearby can reach?A) Yes. People should always be able to stop a machine. B) No. A switch anyone can reach is a switch anyone can misuse.
Should an AI system ever be listed as an author of a scientific paper?A) Yes. Hiding its part misleads readers. B) No. An author must be able to answer for mistakes.
Should an AI weather forecast replace one built on physics?A) Yes. If it is right more often, use it. B) No. A forecast should come with reasons a person can check.
Should every student take an old computer apart once?A) Yes. A machine is less of a mystery once you have seen inside. B) No. Most people only ever need to use one.
Should old software and old video games be preserved like books in a library?A) Yes. They are part of how people lived and played. B) No. Storage and upkeep cost money that libraries lack.
Should researchers pause work on more powerful AI until it is better understood?A) Yes. Understanding should come before power. B) No. We learn how a thing behaves by building it.
Should robots be built to look like people?A) Yes. People work more easily with a familiar shape. B) No. A machine should look like a machine, so nobody is fooled.
Should scientists publish the computer code behind their results?A) Yes. A result nobody can rerun is only a claim. B) No. Tidying code for strangers takes time away from research.
Should scientists simulate an experiment instead of running it when a simulation is cheaper?A) Yes. A thousand runs cost less than one lab. B) No. A model only knows what we told it.
Should supercomputers be shared between countries the way telescope time is?A) Yes. A good idea should not wait for a rich sponsor. B) No. Whoever paid for the machine should use it first.
Should the public get a say in how self-driving cars make decisions?A) Yes. Everyone shares the road with them. B) No. Engineering choices should be made by engineers.
Should the software that runs public services be open for anyone to inspect?A) Yes. The public should be able to see how a decision is made. B) No. Open code also shows attackers where to look.
Should training an AI on published books and papers need the authors' permission?A) Yes. The work belongs to the people who wrote it. B) No. Reading and learning from books has always been allowed.
How science is done 21
Is a failed experiment still good science?A) Yes. Knowing what does not work is knowledge. B) No. Not unless you can say why it failed.
Should a lab notebook be written by hand?A) Yes. Ink on a dated page is hard to tidy up afterwards. B) No. Typed notes can be searched and shared.
Should a risky experiment need approval from people outside science?A) Yes. The risk is carried by everyone. B) No. Judging the risk takes training.
Should a science fair give prizes?A) Yes. A prize is a reason to finish. B) No. Judging rewards polish over curiosity.
Should a scientist keep a discovery secret while applying for a patent?A) Yes. Without a patent, nobody pays to develop it. B) No. Other labs waste time on what is already known.
Should a scientist's popular books and videos count as part of the job?A) Yes. Explaining science to the public is science work. B) No. Time on camera is time away from the lab.
Should a study be published even when it finds nothing?A) Yes. A dead end on record saves the next lab a year. B) No. Journals have room only for what readers need.
Should every scientific paper be free for anyone to read?A) Yes. Much research is paid for by the public. B) No. Editing and checking cost money that someone must pay.
Should experiments in Antarctica be open to scientists of every country?A) Yes. Science done there should be shared by everyone. B) No. Whoever builds and supplies a station should decide who works there.
Should observations by volunteers count as scientific data?A) Yes. Ten thousand pairs of eyes see what one lab cannot. B) No. Data needs trained hands and checked tools.
Should repeating someone else's experiment count as much as a new discovery?A) Yes. A result is only solid once it has been repeated. B) No. Science moves forward on new ideas.
Should research money be handed out by drawing lots among the good proposals?A) Yes. It ends months of form-filling and favoritism. B) No. Judges can still tell good from excellent.
Should research money go to curiosity before usefulness?A) Yes. Nobody knows which odd question will matter later. B) No. Public money should aim at known problems.
Should science classes use metric units only?A) Yes. A mix-up between English and metric units cost NASA a Mars orbiter in 1999. B) No. Students also need the units used at home and in stores.
Should science museums show ideas that turned out to be wrong?A) Yes. Seeing how ideas were corrected shows how science works. B) No. Visitors may remember the wrong idea, not the correction.
Should scientists be rewarded for how many papers they publish?A) Yes. It is a measure that everyone can count. B) No. It rewards many small papers over one careful one.
Should scientists have to explain their work in words a ten-year-old can follow?A) Yes. If you cannot say it simply, you are not done. B) No. Some ideas need their exact words.
Should scientists share their raw data on the day they publish?A) Yes. Others can check the work at once. B) No. The team that gathered it deserves time to use it first.
Should students design their own experiments instead of following a recipe?A) Yes. Asking your own question is the heart of science. B) No. A recipe teaches the method before you invent one.
Should the experts who check a paper sign their names?A) Yes. A signed review is a careful review. B) No. Peer review is usually anonymous, and that lets reviewers be frank.
Should the public vote on which big science projects get built?A) Yes. Whoever pays should choose. B) No. A vote favors what sounds exciting over what is sound.