SAVY Saturday, Week 1, Biology of the Body (5th-6th)
Dear Parents,
Welcome to Biology of the Body. This course will allow students to take an active role in identifying and resolving real-world problems constructed to promote scientific learning. Throughout the duration of this course, our young scholars will gather information from a variety of sources to investigate the anatomy and physiology of the human body by focusing on the immune system and infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis.
Focus on Tuberculosis (TB)
One of the diseases we will be focusing on is Tuberculosis (TB). TB is a bacterial infection that primarily affects the lungs and can be spread through the air when a person with active TB coughs, speaks, or sneezes. The importance for students to learn about TB is to understand how it spreads and how it can be prevented.
What Students Will Learn
- How TB is Transmitted: Students will learn that TB germs can be spread through the air when someone with active TB disease coughs, speaks, or sneezes.
- Symptoms of TB: They will learn about the symptoms of TB, which include a persistent cough, fever, and weight loss.
- Prevention: Students will discuss ways to prevent the spread of TB, such as covering their mouths when they cough and washing their hands regularly.
Why This is Important
Understanding how diseases like TB are transmitted helps students become more aware of their health and the health of those around them. This knowledge is crucial for preventing the spread of infections and maintaining a healthy community.
How You Can Help
We encourage you to talk to your scholars about what they are learning and consider asking these questions:
- What Are the Different Ways That Diseases Can Spread?
- How Can the Way a Disease Spread Affect Who Is at Risk?
Some Insights To Further Review:
During our class this Saturday, students engaged in a group research project to explore the various ways diseases can spread and how this affects who is at risk. By the end of the class, students used their research to create models of the immune system, simulating the primary and secondary immune responses of the human body. Next week, we will continue our experiment of calculating the mass of iron filings (representing pathogens) removed by magnetic tape (representing antibodies). We will display the data in a bar graph for analysis. With their findings, students should conclude which scenario had more interaction and the roles memory cells play during an immune response, as well as explain the impact of vaccines as a means of protection against certain diseases.
Additional Resources for Further Research
- Ways infectious diseases spread, Biology for Kids: Infectious Disease
- How Pathogens Make Us Sick, The National Academies, http://needtoknow.nas.edu/id/infection/how-pathogens-make-us-sick/
- The Outbreak Game Solve The Outbreak
Warmest Regards,
Tiffani S. Norman