MYP Chemistry: Reflecting on Chemistry in Society (Criterion D)

It's the MYP's Criterion D — 'Reflecting on the impacts of science' — applied to chemistry. Instead of testing content recall, it asks you to explain how a chemical process or product is used to solve a real problem, then evaluate its wider implications: environmental, ethical, economic or social. It's assessed in MYP 4-5 alongside Criteria A, B and C.

Criterion D has four strands, each marked in bands from 1-2 up to 7-8: (i) explain how science is applied to a specific problem, (ii) discuss and evaluate the implications of that application, (iii) apply scientific language consistently, and (iv) document sources appropriately.

Criterion C, 'Processing and evaluating', asks you to analyse your own experimental data — trends, reliability, sources of error. Criterion D asks you to step back from your data and discuss the real-world impact of the chemistry itself, like whether a fertiliser's yield gains outweigh its eutrophication risk.

The strand verbs are explain, discuss and evaluate — all defined command terms in the MYP command terms glossary. 'Explain' wants cause-and-effect reasoning, 'discuss' wants more than one viewpoint fairly represented, and 'evaluate' wants a judgement weighed against stated criteria, not just a list of pros and cons.

Level 7-8 needs all four strands done consistently, not just once. You must explain the application with real detail, evaluate implications against named criteria rather than a vague pros-and-cons list, keep scientific vocabulary accurate throughout the whole piece, and document every source in one consistent format.

A strong evaluation weighs implications against explicit criteria — cost, scale, reversibility, who's affected — rather than listing generic 'advantages and disadvantages'. I tell every class I teach: name your criteria first, judge each implication against them, then land on a reasoned stance instead of a fence-sitting 'it depends'.

Strand iv wants every source documented with an in-text citation plus a full reference list, in one consistent style — APA is the most common choice in MYP schools. Cite as you write, not afterwards; students who leave referencing to the end almost always miss two or three sources and drop a band.

Pick a topic with a genuine dilemma, not just interesting chemistry — PET plastic recycling, ammonia-based fertiliser production, chlorination of drinking water and lithium extraction for batteries all work well because each has a clear chemical process and a real, contested trade-off worth evaluating.

Criterion D is marked out of 8, the same maximum as Criteria A, B and C. According to the IB's MYP: From Principles into Practice guide, the four criteria combine to a raw total out of 32, which schools convert to the final 1-7 grade using the published MYP subject-group grade boundaries.

It's a full quarter of the total — 8 of the 32 raw marks across the four criteria. A student strong in lab-based Criteria B and C but weak on Criterion D can still slip an overall grade band, because MYP boundaries are set on the combined total, not any single criterion.

Yes — all four MYP Sciences criteria must be assessed at least twice within each MYP year, so Criterion D tasks appear more than once across both MYP 4 and MYP 5. Schools typically build them into units on sustainability, materials science or industrial chemistry rather than saving it for one project.

Because the MYP deliberately assesses four separate skills, not just content recall, and Criterion D is one of them. It builds the evaluative, ethically-aware reasoning that Diploma Programme sciences and university courses expect; a strong Criterion D grade shows your child can reason about science, not just memorise it.

Ask them to explain the chemistry behind something in the news — a plastic bag ban, water fluoridation, battery recycling schemes — then push them to argue both sides before reaching a judgement. That's exactly the discuss-then-evaluate structure Criterion D rewards, and it costs nothing beyond a dinner-table conversation.