Description
- Overview:
- Students will gather information and data about vaccine information. They will use this information to argue whether or not vaccinations should be mandatory, culminating in a summative assessment in the form of a debate and a reflection on the information gathered.
- Remix of:
- STEM Inquiry Lesson Template
- Subject:
- English Language Arts, Mathematics
- Level:
- Middle School, High School, Adult Education
- Material Type:
- Lesson Plan
- Author:
- Ryanne Dennis, Molly Horn, Madeleine Wright
- Date Added:
- 04/07/2015
- License:
- Creative Commons Attribution
- Language:
- English
- Media Format:
- Graphics/Photos, Text/HTML
Comments
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Evaluations
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I liked this lesson as it was very comprehensive and included some excellent resources and the activities were very detailed. As this is a very hot topic and can be widely argued for or against either side it presents an interesting discussion for students. The articles were very interesting and well chosen. I feel that a teacher could easily pick up this lesson and run with it whether they use all or a part of it.
This lesson provides a fantastic way to allow students to demonstrate knowledge of a relevant topic in their lives. Students are able to access information through a variety of mediums; readings, videos, games. Having students end the unit with a debate allows them to demonstrate their knowledge, evaluate the importance of vaccines and take a justifiable position based on science on whether vaccines should be mandatory.
The two things that stood out to me about this lesson are :
1) This lesson covers many aspects of vaccines beginning with vocabulary and ending with the larger issue of whether vaccines and autism are linked.
2) This lesson is great example of scaffolding to get students understanding how vaccines are created and to critically evaluate the importance of vaccines.
What I like about this lesson:
For students struggling with any part of this project, each prerequisite is easily identified. The supporting questions were very helpful for students when discussing/debating the issues.
This topic is very relevant to current events and should be of high interest for the students. I like the debate format and developing students public speaking skills. Great initial research, video clips and then activity to learn how vaccines work. I can see using some of these ideas in my Biology classes!
This unit takes aim at a current controversy: vaccines. It forces students to take a stand on the topic and to support their position using evidence from a number of resources (provided in a number of formats!). The information is then used to construct a debate strategy. It would be interesting to see if any additional articles on immunizations (both for and against) could be brought in and to perhaps include a bit of a discussion on the concept of bias in information -- but that would be at the high school level.