Lessons

Students explore the importance of the immune system and its different components.

Students learn about the body’s first line of defense—the innate immune system.

Students explore the constant battle between pathogens and the immune system, focusing particularly on the different ways that pathogens adapt to overcome the immune system.

Following the previous lesson in which students learned how pathogens adapt to overcome the immune system, the focus herein is viral replication and specifically, how influenza and HIV adapt.

Students investigate different ways that people become immune to pathogens.

Students explore the history of vaccine research and ethical considerations related to vaccine research.

Students learn the difference between types of information and examine the ways that information spreads via social media networks.

Students explore how animal research has contributed to human health and why it is important to biomedical research.

Students explore the contributions of animal research to vaccine development as an example of the benefits this type of research can have on human health.

Students research different infectious diseases to determine the ways they spread and who is most at risk. The lesson concludes with students developing resources to help educate an at-risk population about how to protect themselves from infection.

Students learn the different ways that influenza virus can mutate and what impact that has on how rapidly and widely the virus spreads. The class develops a hypothesis regarding the impact of World War I on the spread of influenza. Student groups research topics related to the 1918 influenza pandemic and assess whether the findings support or reject the class hypothesis.