Rationale
As science produces new security and safety threats, efforts to guard against them can sometimes threaten valuable civil liberties. It is often very difficult to decide how best to protect against the new dangers modern science produces while still avoiding repressive policies. By exploring these issues, students can gain a greater appreciation of the importance of science and the broader problems, as well as benefits, science can bring into their lives and into all our lives.
This unit is designed for high school students grades nine through twelve. My average class size is thirty-three students. The school in which I teach is a vocational technical high school and the majority of the students are males. The school is currently on a block schedule, with classes that are approximately ninety minutes in length. Each class meets Mon-Fri for ninety minutes a day from September to January and from February to June.
As freshmen entering high school, students get to participate in five week rotations throughout all shops to get a sense of what it would be like to be in these shops. They then get to select what shops they would prefer to be in, with priority given to those students with the best ninth grade academic performance. Students have several shops from which they can choose to study for the duration of high school starting from tenth grade to twelfth, including HRT (Health Related and Technology); auto body; automotive; electrical; culinary arts; construction; welding; and plumbing. This unit is to be taught from a vocational perspective. Each of the above shops represents a different vocation and they are accordingly taught very differently. The issues with which this unit is concerned, the dangers posed by chemical and biological terrorist weapons, are most directly pertinent to the Health Related and Technology shop. However it is imperative that all students learn and understand the importance of taking safety precautions in the shops. This is the foundation to being successful in all of the shops.
This unit will stress the importance of safety and precautions in all vocational settings when confronted with new threats produced by modern science, particularly a new biological weapon, anthrax. Recent events have shown how terrorists can distribute anthrax in ways that might threaten any office or workplace. Many of the measures used to protect against it apply also to other sorts of toxic threats in workplaces. It is important for students to see the importance of using safety precautions and how they are enforced in industry. Students will also learn about some recommendations for preventing exposure. Safety is a very real issue and it should be taken very seriously.
After learning about the threats presented by anthrax and other such biological and chemical weapons, students will also learn and understand the importance of civil liberties through a debate over what sorts of security measures are and are not appropriate to combat these threats.
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