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Citizenship at key stage 3 (Year 7-9)
Unit 20: What's in the public interest?
Section 3: What is the relevant science? (How can animals be protected against infectious diseases?)
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Objectives |
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- about distinguishing fact from opinion
- about the interplay between empirical questions, evidence and scientific explanations
- about the ways in which scientists work today and how they worked in the past, including the roles of experimentation, evidence and creative thought in the development of scientific ideas
- to use talk to hypothesise, speculate and evaluate, conflicting evidence (NSE)
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Ask pupils to recall relevant scientific ideas, eg for immunisation: What are the symptoms of the disease? Can the disease be treated? How does the microbe spread? Is the host contagious before it shows symptoms? Is there a test available to identify hosts during the incubation period? How does the immune system respond with and without immunisation? What does 'vaccination' mean? Are there other ways to prevent the spread of the disease?
- Introducing one or more historical case studies is one way of undertaking revision and at the same time developing understanding of citizenship concepts. Key events have sometimes led to public acceptance of new policies, eg cholera outbreaks in 19th century London created a notion of public health and enabled statutory protective measures to be introduced.
To develop scientific understanding, a science teacher might prefer to undertake relevant practical work, afterwards inviting pupils to explain what was done and then discussing what it showed.
- In small groups, pupils think critically about the information they have considered.
Which parts of the information from interested parties are factual, and which are opinion? One way of doing this would be to ask pupils to sort statements into three categories: 'fact', 'opinion' and 'uncertain'. Choose statements carefully to ensure that all categories are represented. Follow-up discussion is essential, so that pupils are trained to be critical of 'fact'. For instance, it is a 'fact' that vaccinations can have unwanted side effects, but causal links are often difficult to establish, eg a suggested link between MMR vaccination and autism is by no means proven; the science here is uncertain. Crime statistics, because they arise in part through enforcement policy itself, are not straightforward facts.
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- identify and understand the key aspects of the chosen science-related issue
- distinguish fact from opinion and know the importance of being critical of how 'facts' are presented
- describe a range of mechanisms by which microbes enter the body
- describe antibody action
- recall that vaccines contain microbial material, eg weakened strains, dead micro-organisms, extracts of micro-organisms, that cannot cause infections
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Points to note |
- Public health campaign materials may provide relevant facts and arguments.
- A case study could take the form of a video, printed material or information on a website.
- Suggestions and resources for teaching the relevant science topic are given in the schemes of work, eg for immunisation, refer to unit 8C 'Microbes and disease' in the key stage 3 science scheme.
- Appropriate historical case studies might include: Edward Jenner and the smallpox vaccine; Louis Pasteur (either development of germ theory of disease or his vaccine for rabies); Robert Koch and his identification of the bacilli responsible for TB and cholera.
- Extension activity: an exercise modelling the spread of an infectious disease could be undertaken.
- Link with NSE: year 7 S&L12, year 8 S&L10, year 9 S&L9.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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