Content Background
Ultimately, in this unit, besides inspiring our students to become change agents, I would like to make a connection to two previous units I have taught. While my unit is not directly about Henrietta Lacks, my interest in cervical cancer arose from that nonfiction piece. I will use this unit as a precursor to introduce the unit based on her book. While reading excerpts from the prologue of her book, we will tie the science content that is presented in the narrative to labs on cell structure, cell membranes, diffusion and osmosis, DNA extraction, mitosis, organ systems and others.
Another related unit is from the Chicago Public School’s seventh-grade curriculum for sexual health, since it does introduce the HPV (human papillomavirus) as a sexually transmitted infection. The Chicago Public School’s curriculum on sexual health introduces HPV by first explaining the difference between a sexually transmitted disease caused by a bacteria and one caused by a virus. This is a great opportunity to take this lesson and tie it into science. Here, I present the information given by the sexual health curriculum and do an activity on the difference between bacteria and a virus. I use this background knowledge to further investigate the connection between HPV and cervical cancer. In my readings, I have learned that the majority of cases of cervical cancer are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). It is also important to note that some of the research on cervical cancer has been done using Henrietta’s own HeLa cervical cancer cells. I find this fascinating. To think that she had no clue how significant her cells would become in the scientific field.
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