Microbes Rule!

Student Goals and Activities

Physiology classes at Mt. Pleasant High School are structured around an organ system of focus. A typical unit includes a combination of lectures in a flip-classroom fashion, daily discussions, activities, labs, mini-project, and assessment. In this unit students will be asked to relate their understanding of the Human Integumentary System and Microbiology.

Beyond day to day activities, students will be assigned a microbe, which may be a part of the normal flora or may be pathogenic. As a homework assignment they will be asked to find two scientific articles on their assigned microbe. In their search, students will have to relate their assigned microbe to a skin disease and explain its symptoms, the virulence and pathogenesis within the two articles they will bring to class. Because our school does have wireless and many students bring their tablets, smart phones, and laptops to class they will be encouraged to utilize their technology as a means to complete this initial assignment.

Once students return with their articles, they will be asked to write no more than twenty-five words to describe their microbe as a means to get the "gist" of their microbe, its relation to skin, symptoms, and pathogenesis. Within the framework of a pair-share activity students will share their twenty-five word gist summary. After which, they will defend their chosen words to their partner. This type of activity will help students focus on the essential words that have "the most bang for their buck." Select students will then be allowed to share their list to the whole class and the whole class will decide on the top five which will be featured as a "Today's Microbe."During the second week of this unit students will be asked to do some research related to everyday microbes. In a similar fashion as the first week's focus, students will research microbes commonly found on classrooms, cell phones, bathrooms, and bedrooms. Surely, by the end of this exercise my students' skin will feel like it is crawling.

Embedded as a daily in-text reading activity, students will read several articles on their assigned microbe in order to practice their text interaction skills. Having taught the AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) Program for many years, it is apparent that one reason why students do not comprehend the text they are reading is due to not having the skill to interact with it. Students in Physiology will practice this skill using the AVID Critical Reading Approach to Marking the Text on multiple pieces of text that they themselves will find. Students will be asked to read short 1-2 page science news articles related to a microbe that is beneficial or deleterious for human skin health. Utilizing the microbe articles, students will be asked to employ the strategy of "Writing in the Margins." ⁴⁷ A sample activity that students will engage in will be to make comments in the margins of their notes and assigned readings. The six components are: Visualize, Summarize, Clarify, Connect, Respond, and Question. ⁴⁸ The six marking the text components include several questioning prompts that ask students to communicate their different levels of understanding of the given text. Sample questions related to the assigned readings include:

1. What are the ideas that you can connect back to the anatomy and function of the skin?
2. Would it be plausible to create or modify the skin's barrier system in order to make it more efficient? And would this really be beneficial or would it be detrimental to the overall balance of the skin's microbiome?
3. What is the author's motive for this article? Should the reader be skeptical of their claims?

Another activity that would allow students to integrate elements of history and English is a "Microbe vs. Skin" battle scenario. Students will take part in strategizing how best to protect their skin against the attack of a microbe. Students will have to use a set of vocabulary terminology that must be employed within their story. They will be prompted by the following statement: "Your team represents the integumentary system. A new microbe has come to your attention and you must find a way to mitigate the threat of infection. Propose a solution to your problem." Though students will be asked to solve the microbial infection problem, they will however be given limitations for their solutions, for example, one group of students may not be able to produce an inflammatory response, another may not be able to recognize the microbe as non-self, and a third may be immunosuppressed, lacking the ability to call upon the immune system to help with the potential attack. Similarly, student teams will be given a microbe with different capabilities. A virus might have the ability to specifically attack melanocytes; another may mimic the actions of healthy keratinocytes, or commandeer the mechanisms of dermal blood vessels to deliver nutrients to the tissue. Thus, students will need to creatively decide which integumentary organs will be necessary to prevent infection or allow for the development of new relationships between the host and the microbe, thus mimicking similar host-microbe interactions already in existence.

The challenge will be for students to purposefully communicate their defense structures and mechanisms in order to "purchase/develop new mechanisms" of defense from other groups who represent different skin locations. For example one team that represents the skin found on scalp may have a better ability to produce sweat and sebum, whereas a team from the palm of the hand may have a thicker epidermal layer making them stronger against everyday microbes found on surfaces like a table or cell phone.

As their teacher, I hope students will try creative solutions to meet the necessity of both the microbe and the skin needing to thrive. Creative students might make a pact to not destroy each other, or to make agreements with the host to house the microbe. Though it will cause some depletion of the host's resources, perhaps the host will benefit because the microbe it houses will allow the host to defend itself against a far more virulent attack. By inciting students' competitive nature, classroom engagement and motivation will increase, helping the students to understand their topic in depth, while employing critical thinking, inquiry, and design in the curriculum. Thus, the activity will require students to understand the background content related to skin physiology and anatomy, but also to have a basic understanding regarding the difference between a bacterial vs. a viral infection of the skin. It will also provide them a venue to be creative and to practice their critical thinking skills in order to win the battle between microbes and the skin. A second alternative to this activity is the Skin Care Brochure Project attached in Appendix B.

Finally, this unit is written to aide my students' understanding of the necessity for microbes. Rather than turning to the first bottle of antibacterial gel or hand lotion before each lunch hour, I hope my students make wise decisions that some bacteria are good and necessary for human skin health. Though my students immediately think of the HPV-2 infected Dede Kosawa (aka Treeman) when I say, "Name a skin disorder," by the culmination of this unit I hope my students grasp the idea that the human microbiome is a delicate balance of both good and bad microbes. That, in fact, the presence of microbes may benefit humans. Although they may never subject themselves to an ointment or salve teeming with bacteria as an effective moisturizer, perhaps they will be more accepting of the dirt they find in their nails the presence of dust on keypads, and the film of skin and oil on their cell phones as they proudly exclaim Kelly Clarkson's motto of, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"