Rationale
This curriculum unit is designed for my AP Chemistry students at James Lick High School, in San Jose, California. Our school is situated at the heart of Silicon Valley, where the median annual household income is around $87,000.3 Most of my students, however, are socioeconomically disadvantaged. In 2017-18, of the 1099 students enrolled at our school, 86% qualify for free or reduced lunch. In a city where the median home price is well above $800,000, many of the families we serve are only able to afford to rent a bedroom or share a home with other families. About 20% of our students are English language learners, 15% have learning disabilities, and 2% are classified as foster youth, homeless, or migrant. Despite the challenges, our school has shown a steady increase in graduation rate, from 76% in 2014-15 to 84% in 2017-18. Four years ago, our school made a bold move and adopted interdisciplinary project-based/problem-based learning (PBL/PrBL) as our primary instructional model. In this inquiry-based model, students collaborate on authentic projects where they apply their acquired content knowledge to answer challenging questions or solve complex real-world problems.
Antibiotic resistance is a real-world problem that has or will likely have a direct impact on my students, their families, our school, and the entire community. This is the kind of problem that I like to bring at the center of our classroom discourse so students will find relevance and meaning in what they are learning. This will meet the course’s goal of providing students the opportunity to connect their knowledge of chemistry and science to major societal issues. As students consider controversial solutions to the problem and evaluate their costs, risks, and benefits, I hope that they develop critical thinking. As they consider their own role in solving this problem, I hope that they are empowered to be agents of change in our community.
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