The new Connecticut science standards include a "Science, Technology, and Society" (STS) standard for each grade level. This standard encourages students to explore how scientific knowledge affects the quality of their lives. By relating science concepts to real-world decision making, STS investigations give students a framework through which they can build a meaningful understanding of science content. In this article, the author shares how she introduced her students to the dynamics of a formal debate using current and varied topics such as the sale of irradiated food and the debate about students bringing their backpacks to class. The debates, especially the rebuttal sections, were both more difficult and more fun than the students had anticipated. It was found that this experience increased student confidence in their ability to research and organize difficult material, to understand that forming opinions should be something done after careful and thorough research, and to become familiar with the fundamentals of research. (Contains 1 figure and 2 resources.)