If you choose to do a Case Study for GCSE Chemistry, how 'chemical' does it have to be? What if students are just doing GCSE Science?
As an example of this, module C3 'Food matters' includes food and farming, diet, obesity and diabetes which are biology topics. So could a GCSE Chemistry case study be about obesity and diabetes, or the pros and cons or organic farming and food? In GCSE Science, would a case study on global warming be acceptable?
This is an answer from the C21 project team, not OCR. You should refer to OCR if you are in doubt.
If students are just doing the GCSE Science course, OCR tend to accept coursework topics which go beyond the limits of the specification (although strand B of Case Studies and strand I for Investigations do require some science content!). It is likely that all the ones you mention would be acceptable.
Teachers should use their judgement and look at the overall educational experience of the student concerned. Doing the triple subject set should provide broader and more varied experience for students, so the teachers concerned should work together to ensure that any one student picks significantly different topics for each assessment. If a teacher is in doubt, they should contact OCR, describing the topic and the approach which is proposed, and a consultant moderator will give advice.
OCR might accept work on a topic beyond what is normally acceptable and mark it as well as the criteria allow (to avoid penalising the students for the teachers choice) - but write a warning report to the school suggesting more appropriate choices in future.
It is occasionally possible - for instance if a student has been ill - for coursework to be submitted to OCR for more than one specification, or different slants on the same topic to be submitted, but this would not generally be regarded as good practice.
