5wk Unit: Epidemiology

Class: Physiology Level: HS, mixed, no previous science experience

It’s not perfect, but in light of current global events, I thought even the agendas might help others with planning. It ends with cholera and ebola.

Week 1: Viruses & Bacteria

Agenda

• 1A - Doctor-patient time graphs (from med school classes; discuss scientific evidence-inference nature of diagnosis & differential diagnoses)

• 1B - What’s Wrong With Allison? (group activity I found online; I taped questions onto envelopes and put answers inside for Ss to arrange & select)

  • get 3 differential diagnoses for 5 questions selected from 20; simulates data-gathering at a medical appt

• C - Virus v. Bacteria

  • Flu Attack! (video & discussion)

  • Graph Analysis compare/contrast virus & bacterial growth

  • Design triage system to help identify illnesses based on information so far

• D - Types of Pathogen Growth

  • Model Virus vs. Bacteria (build)

  • Compare/Contrast lysogenic v. lytic (video & reading)

• E - Lymphatic System & Responses

  • Lecture Notes: Lymphatic System

  • CER about lymphatic system

  • posters about diseases connected to lymphatic system response

• F - revise triage system based on type of growth

  • Predict lysogenic v. lytic growth

  • Revise triage system using new information

Week 2: Spreading the Disease

Agenda

• 2A Do Now: Costs of anti-vaxxing

• B: Identifying symptoms of bacteria, viruses, and how they spread

  • Activity: Simulating epidemiology & rate of spread

  • Video Notes: Bacteria

  • Video Notes: Strep Throat & Cavities

  • Video Notes: Viruses

• C: Connect epidemiological triangle to lysogenic/lytic growth

  • Do Now: Epidemiological Triangle

  • Graph & explain data for spread of disease in terms of bacteria v. virus/lysogenic vs. lytic

  • Read & Answer to review: Epidemiological triangle

• D: Historical epidemics & diseases

  • Lecture notes: Spread of different diseases through time

• 2E Posters: historical epidemics & responses (pandemic, Spanish flu, measles, dengue fever, smallpox, polio, etc.)

• 2F Exit Ticket: Challenges for predicting growth, spread, rate, intensity of disease

Week 3. Case Study: Cholera

Agenda

• 3A Osmosis Review

  • Do Now: Can humans survive by drinking salt water?

  • Naked Egg-speriment review: predict hypotonic, hypertonic, isotonic

  • discuss & watch Video: How do you use osmosis to cure a sore throat?

  • discuss & watch Video: Why do contacts need saline?

  • Osmosis card sort review

  • 3A Webquest Debate: WHO Investigation (cholera introduction)

• 3B-C Case Study: Surviving a Cholera Epidemic (adapted Shannon Muskopf)

  • When is it appropriate to force a cure on a population?

  • Rubric for Final Essay: Diagnosing Cholera

  • Gallery Walk: Symptoms, treatment, socio-cultural response, etc.

• 3C Graph & statistics for cholera → apply epidemiological analysis & treatment, viral, bacterial, etc.

  • Video analysis & discussion: Red Cross video explaining cholera, discuss what works & doesn’t

• 3D: PSA: create an updated cholera video for San Francisco about cholera

• 3F: Exit Ticket:

  • 1. Is cholera viral or bacterial? How do you know?

  • 2. When do the symptoms of cholera become life-threatening?

  • 3. What treatments are available for cholera and why do they work?

• 3F: Debate (WHO): cholera outbreak

Week 4-5. Case Study & Final Showcase: Ebola

Agenda

• A: Triaging spread

  • Based on population, statistics, questions about potential spread

  • NME? Of ebola & necessity of triage

  • Review epidemiology triangle

• B: The Hot Zone of Ebola

  • Jigsaw: video from red cross

  • Reading: hot zone

  • Lecture: epidemiology, etiology, costs and responses

• C: Why is Ebola difficult to treat?

  • Evaluate what main threatening problems of ebola are

  • What treatments are available

  • Why is ebola difficult to treat?

  • Each group reports on one type of treatment or response

• D: How do we respond to ebola?

  • Videos for differential responses from the ground, news reports, interviews, etc. (whatever latest youtube videos are concerning the crisis)

  • Video: Burial Boys

  • Video: Sierra Leone response to ebola

  • Jigsaw: Ebola 101 - In the News

  • Evaluate & analyze why response is different in different countries

  • Multilingual ebola symptom posters

• E : Ebola in the US? Epidemiology in the US?

  • compare responses between ebola & vaccination crisis in the US

  • What would happen in the US for ebola?

  • Misinformation: autism-vaccines hoax vs. ebola vectors

  • 4E Do Now Reading Headline: Dr. Anthony Fauci: Risks From Vaccines Are “Almost Nonmeasurable”

• F: Differential responses in different parts of Africa due to socioeconomic & infrastructure factors

  • Firebombing, Medicins sans frontieres

  • why/why not intervene?

  • Legal &* financial questions

• SUMMATIVE: design a plan for the US in case of Ebola

Week 5 Agenda

• 5A Do now: ppe costs

  • Intro: Ebola design project

  • What are examples of ppe at which level

  • Videos and movie examples of ppe

  • What’s the same

  • What’s different

• prewriting

• Portray one person or organization affected by ebola in an art project

  • Showcase expression and connect science to human responses

  • Must be able to identify disease, symptoms, responses, personal reactions, and the future

  • Share and educate about different parties affected

  • Present & evaluate artistic project

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DBQ: use of neurological scans in criminal sentencing hearings

Task:

1. Randomly assign students 1 of 4 neurological scans (PET, EEG/MEG, fMRI, CT).

2. Using docs & science notebook, students follow question prompts to evaluate their neurological scan for use in criminal sentencing hearings and the use of scans generally.

Basics

Document-Based Question: Use of Neurological Scans in Criminal Sentencing Hearings

Use: summative assessment for nervous system

Class: HS elective Physiology (11/12)

Resources & Scaffolds: open notebook, student worksheets from activities, annotated source documents labeled w/ specific relevant questions

Student examples: DM me if you're a teacher and would like to see ~70 student responses from a heterogeneous urban public high school.

Description

Introduction

Nervous about posting this because I worry I’m overstepping, but I want to build something better, so I’m sharing a final exam essay my physiology students said they enjoyed taking because they felt like they’d learned a new aspect of applying what they’d learned, and because it affected something ongoing in their lives and in the lives of their peers. This is my clumsy attempt at a summative assessment that asks they apply our investigations into the nervous system and cognitive neuroscience to a real question about US criminal sentencing outcomes.

Background & motivation

I based it on a MacArthur conference I attended w/ neuroscientists & jurists. Some of my Ss have been in detention or have relatives who are incarcerated, and stated they appreciated applying and learning about this element of how we use science & what we need to bridge the gaps. Credit to Francis X. Shen whose work inspired me to create this prompt.

Before you begin

Please carefully frame the realities of the social justice implications, invite Ss to Wellness to decompress, & check in advance for triggers. I blanked-out nonrelevant portions but provide the entire annotated pdfs here for any teacher who needs background.

Disclaimer

I was in science and law before entering teaching, and my nervous system unit frequently integrates modern neuroscience research/fads with student metacognition, so your results may vary. You’ll notice the final mentions influential cognition experiments and also expects students to have reviewed and evaluated the discussed neurological scans already in a previous lesson.

PART ONE OF TWO. Prompt:

How should we use <randomly assigned neurological scan> in US criminal hearings?

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PART TWO OF TWO. Readings:

1. Reading A: Jones & Shen. 2012. INTERNATIONAL NEUROLAW: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS, p. 349, T.M. Spranger, ed., Springer-Verlag, 2012 Vanderbilt Public Law Research Paper No. 1-5.

2. Reading B: Jones et al. 2013. LAW AND NEUROSCIENCE. The Journal of Neuroscience, November 6, 2013, 33(45):17624-17630. DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3254-13.2013

3. Reading C: Mclatchie et al. ‘IMAGINED GUILT’ VERSUS ‘RECOLLECTED GUILT’: IMPLICATIONS FOR FMRI.

4. Reading D: Jones et al. 2009. BRAIN IMAGING FOR LEGAL THINKERS: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED. 2009 STAN.TECH.L.REV.5. SSRN ID: 1563612. Available at http://stlr.stanford.edu/pdf/jones-brain-imaging.pdf

5. Summary sheets for Ss missing papers: Reviews neurological scans, limitations, etc. Various sources.

Do Now (4x): Science of Adolescent Sleep (Silent Sustained Reading)

Students asking for a quiet week? Start class with a 5-minute reading task that follows up with a few reading comprehension and discussion questions. My students reported it was helpful for their understanding of sleep and neuroscience. We used this for my physiology class to link homeostasis (or endocrinology) with neuroscience.

Goal: Investigate how sleep deficit affects the structure and function of the human body

Sources:

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Understanding-Sleep#4

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2681062/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/well/family/the-science-of-adolescent-sleep.html

http://vuir.vu.edu.au/467/1/teenagesleep.pdf