The open source Frontiers for Young Minds, with science edited for kids, by kids, is a great initiative. This article on adolescence and the teenage brain by Mills, Goddings & Blakemore is a good example of an article that can be used in the classroom and that can introduce pupils to scientific articles.

A little fragment, but do check the whole article:

“Scientists have begun to link these changes in thinking and behavior to changes occurring in the adolescent brain. We know that the brain is changing both in its function (how it processes information) and its physical structure (or anatomy). A number of studies have explored what is happening in the brain when we try to understand the thoughts, feelings and intentions of others. These studies use a technology called Magnetic Resonance Imaging (or MRI), which allows us to see what is happening in the living human brain. One MRI technique, functional MRI, uses powerful magnetic fields to detect the level of blood flow in the different regions of the brain. Areas activated during an activity need more oxygen to help them work, and this oxygen is transported around the body in red blood cells. Functional MRI measures how much blood is being sent to an area of the brain to determine whether that area is activated during an activity. The signal it measures is call the BOLD signal.

In our lab, we compared BOLD signal when people were reading emotional sentences [3]. Some emotions make you think about someone else’s opinion, e.g. embarrassment and guilt (see Figure 3). For example, you only feel guilty or embarrassed when you understand how someone else might be thinking about you; guilt and embarrassment are therefore social emotions. Other emotions don’t involve thinking about someone else’s opinion, e.g. disgust and fear.”