Teachers TryScience

DAY 1: SPREAD OF DISEASE

Step 1: Pre-lesson discussion

Post the following questions on the board and have students respond.

• Why do we get sick?
• What are some things we do that causes us to get sick?

Step 2: Brainstorm Activity

Have students pass around the stuffed animal (which has been covered in Glo-Germ powder before class). As each student gets the animal, they have to share out something that makes people sick.

Step 3: Expose the Blacklight

Shine the blacklight. Students see how powder was passed from one person to another. Discuss how powder represents how germs are transferred from one person to another.

Step 4: Communicable vs. Non-Communicable Disease Organizer

Give students definitions for communicable and non-communicable disease and have students generate a list of diseases and sort them into the right category in partners. (You can also provide students with a list of diseases and have them sort them into the appropriate categories.)

Step 5: Wrap Up Questions

Have students discuss the following questions after reviewing the definition for epidemic.

• What are some environmental conditions that can affect the spread of disease? (Think about why some diseases are epidemics in certain countries.)
• What are some ways we can stop communicable diseases from spreading?

Homework Extension Activity (optional): Engineering Pure Water worksheet

Engineering Pure Water worksheet (DOC)

DAY2: RESEARCHING COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Step 1: Pre-lesson discussion

Post the definition for symptom on the board and have students respond to and discuss the following questions.

• How do you know when you are sick?
• What are some symptoms you experience?

Step 2: Assign a Communicable Disease

Divide students into groups of four. You may want to view this video on Groups for more information.

Group Work video

Using the Disease Organizer,provide readings on their disease and fill out the information. Teachers can either assign students a given disease or have students choose their own. Teachers also can provide readings on each disease from or have students research their disease on the own using the following websites:

• kidshealth.org/Search01.jsp
• www.cdc.gov
• www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001646/

Step 3: Research

Provide students with a laptop and have them look up additional information and statistics on incidences of their disease. Use www.gapminder.org, www.cdc.org, and www.who.int as sources for students to use.

DAY 3- INTRODUCTION TO PSA LESSON

Step 1: Pre Lesson Discussion

Post the following questions and have students respond:

• What types of things do you think belong in a Public Service Announcement (PSA)?
• What are some types of information that you think the public needs to know about?

Step 2: Examples of PSAs

Show three examples of PSAs (below) and have students answer the following questions in their notebooks after each PSA.

• What was the main idea of the PSA?
• What did they use to send their message?
• What was your emotional response?

• www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=102693
• www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=7495&title=Break_the_Silence__Teen_Suicide_PSA
• www.schooltube.com/video/bd617345ee604744b9e1/Flu-PSA

Step 3: Review

Review with students the following tools of PSA that the examples showed:

• Tone
• Emotional Words
• Powerful visuals

Step 4: Brainstorming

Break students into groups and give students the PSA template to begin brainstorming ideas for their script and visuals.

DAY 4: USE OF STATISTICS IN PSAs

Step 1: Pre-lesson discussion

Post the following statistic on the board: “Every 7 minutes, a child is bullied.”

Discuss why this is a more powerful way of grabbing people’s attention about the issue of bullying instead of just saying “Bullying is a big problem in schools.”

Step 2: Statistics Discussion

Review three examples of PSAs from the day before and how they used statistics.

Step 3: Review and Analyze Statistics of Tuberculosis

Have students in their groups review Tuberculosis Reference Sheet and fill in Comparing Statistics of Disease sheet (in the back of their Communicable Disease Organizer).

Give each group a laptop to enable them to create a graph of data of tuberculosis in the U.S., Ghana, India, Italy, and Mexico using the Create a Graph Website, using information from http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/

Step 4: Post-Lesson Discussion

Have students discuss or answer on an exit slip the following questions.

• How did looking at statistics help you understand how tuberculosis is affecting different countries?
• Why are statistics a powerful tool to use in a PSA?

DAY 5: SCRIPTWRITING AND STORYBOARDING

Students will use information from their PSA template to create a full script and storyboard to show what they will say in their PSA and what it will look like. It should follow the PSA rubric.

DAY 6 AND 7: FILMING/CREATING PSA

Students will create a PSA either filming with a flipcam/digital camera or using the computer program PhotoStory to create a PSA. It should follow the PSA rubric to ensure they include all required elements.

DAY 8: SHARING PSAs

Groups will share their PSAs with the class, and students will answer the following questions after each group presents. Each person will fill out a PSA Peer Evaluation Sheet of each groups work answering the following questions.