How Drugs Work

Classroom Activities

Biology and Physiology Activity

Class activities beyond lecture will include readings, historical and scientific, that will focus on the impact of pathogenic diseases on human beings. This activity is designed to specifically meet the demands of the upcoming Common Core Standards, in which students must be able to read and extract information from a variety of texts. Thus, students reading and writing skills will be reinforced within this course in order to utilize and practice the same skill set. Students, for example, will read historical excerpts related to the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. As a way to reinforce writing, students will practice Cornell Note-taking skills that to recall and reflect upon their readings. This activity will be reoccurring in both Physiology and Biology classes.

Physiology Activity

Students in Physiology will be focused more on the physiology of the lymphatic system and immune system. Their activities will lead to the writing of a storybook in which the major characters and scenarios involve immunity, bacterium or virus, and an antibiotic or antiviral drug. In an early activity within the unit, students will have to describe their understanding of the immune system in words and shorts phrases. This will be accomplished by having students think and record what their thoughts on the function of immune system. After students have had a chance to share with the whole class their words relating to the immunity, students will then be asked to formulate ten sentences that include the terms and phrases that were shared. After jotting down their sentences, students will share their ideas with at least four other people in class. In this way students are forced to practice their collaborative skills, correct each other's information, clarify their own understanding and add to their own knowledge by including other students' sentences into their list of ten. This activity should be well monitored since students often get distracted and off-task. Thus, time limits will be set in place, opportunities to share out what they learned was new, and ask questions to the rest of the class to further their learning, or get clarification.

Once all students have had a chance to discuss and share with multiple students, they will then be asked to evaluate their sentences choosing ten lines that they feel are the most important aspects of the immune system. As their instructor, I will review their list and give feedback on their choices. This process will be repeated and slightly modified for a brainstorming activity on bacteria and viruses. The essential question students will be asked when brainstorming and researching bacteria and viruses will be, "How do certain bacteria/viruses become pathogenic?" Thus, students will need to delve into the physiology occurring inside a human body cell or tissue.

Once their immune system and bacteria and viruses sentences are approved, students will be given instructions as to how to proceed with creating a story that will highlight their 20 sentences. We will review the elements of story, including plot, setting, protagonist, antagonist, etc. Like many teenagers I am expecting my students to balk at the thought of writing a story for a science class. But, it is my intention of introducing to them the Common Core Standards which specifically includes a writing and critical thinking aspect (Appendix I). In their stories, students will have to incorporate one villain. This villain will be a bacteria or virus or a drug resistant bacteria/virus. Students with the most creative stories and those who can incorporate a third component, antibiotics & antiviral drugs, will be given added points to their overall stories.

These stories will then be shared with other students or read to a local elementary school, since our students are volunteers with reading partners in K-6th grade. In allowing students to share their learning, students become owners of their work and are held accountable by their peers and their teachers as well.

Biology Activity

Biology students who have strengths in art will also be given the opportunity to use materials found from everyday household items or non-conventional items to create a model of a bacterium, or a virus. Day one of the lesson will be an introduction to bacteria vs. viruses using a Venn diagram. Within the same hour, instruction will be given regarding the details of four day project and groupings. With a given list of pathogenic viruses and bacteria, students groups will have to choose one pathogen from the list. On Day two students will work in groups of three to four. In their cooperative groups, students will divide into engineers and researchers. Researchers will use web-based resources to gather the following information: Genus and Species, general description, type of microbe, host-parasite relationship, and pathogenic capability (what diseases can it cause). Over the course of three days engineers will have to complete their model, provide a materials list, and a list describing the structural components of their microbe. On the fourth day students will be asked to participate in presentations. Presentations will be divided into two groups A and B. Group A students will present to B students and vice versa. At the end of the class period, students from opposite groups must state one item learned from presentations in order to leave class for the day. Assessments will include group evaluations, individual evaluations, and formative assessment throughout the four days of the lesson.

A second, and larger, culminating project will involve their own research into antimicrobial products at their local drug stores and homes. Throughout the course of the unit students will be asked to gather data regarding the variety of antimicrobial products. This data will be reported into a logbook for a period of two weeks. This will be followed up with small group discussions relating to the necessity of these products. As a part of this assignment students will include individual reports to their group on drug resistant bacteria and viruses in order to open their eyes to the number of microbes that are increasingly more and more difficult to treat. Finally, as a way of communicating their learning beyond my class, students will take part in a poster contest designed to address the need to prevent the spread of germs but at the same time inform their student body of the harmful potential of resistant bacteria.

Another optional Biology activity which incorporates Common Core Standards regarding writing is to have students create a metaphor book. Students' metaphor book will have to explain the different aspects of bacterial/viral life cycle. Since I am a firm believer that students should have options to showcase their learning or understanding, students will be given the option of using multiple media to complete their book (i.e. movie, posters, songs). As long as students are given multiple venues to express their learning, students will rise to the challenges we set forth for them.