Relevant Thematic Unit Design Map
Unit Theme: Lactose Intolerance from a Social Justice Perspective so that students will be able to advocate for their own health and their loved ones.
Essential Questions:
1. What injustice is promoted and perpetuated by science and society related lactose intolerance?
2. How can we collectively design and implement a solution to a real problem?
3. How can we use scientific and action research as tools of power to advocate and improve health and justice in our communities?
Culminating Learning Action/Product/Assessment?
6-week Option: From exploring factors that affect their health and public health, and understanding them in the context of a biased presentation of those factors, students will work collectively to solve an issue or a problem involving lactose intolerance by doing participatory active research and scientific inquiry and writing a proposal, report, and making a presentation to a wider audience of mentors, community members and other stakeholders in the issue.
3 Week Option: An option that would not be a YPAR, but would be an important social justice action, that would take half the time, is to rewrite the original biased text book chapter on the subject and have it published through the online open sourced text book where it came from.
Essential Threads: culture, health, oppression, race, rewriting science.
Other Understandings Students Will/May Gain:
They may learn about foods, other than dairy products that provide valuable nutrients
They may learn things about their own family members and people in their community.
Main Texts:
· Bias Analysis Text: Got Milk?
· Enzymes as Catalysts Text and video
· The Text and video about East African evolution of lactase persistence
· The tools of Action Research
· The literature sources they will research such as demographic information, the causes and effects of lactose intolerance, the school lunch program policies, and others, depending on the specific question/problem of their YPAR.
Critical Vocabulary: lactose, lactose intolerance, lactase, lactase persistence, mutation, gene allele, evolution, enzyme, activation energy, enzyme specificity, active site, substrate, YPAR, survey, interview, focus group, types of bias.
Applicable Disciplines and Specific Standards: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Language Arts
Key Competencies: Conducting research, conducting scientific inquiry, writing informational texts, writing arguments, reading informational texts, making a presentation, understanding how enzymes affect human beings.
Primary Instructional Approaches: Discussions and discourse in a whole class and small focus group settings, laboratory experiments, conducting research, creating reports and presentations, bias analysis, critical examination of society and science.
Community Connections: Field trip to local recreation centers, churches, libraries and other areas where community members can be gathered for students to be able to conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Connections to scientist mentors through the internet, perhaps a field trip. Final presentation for invited members of the community, school and district administrators, policy makers, mentors and other stakeholders in the project.
Modification/ Differentiation: Three different versions of the scientific investigation that contain different amounts of structure and open endedness on enzymes, links and multi-modal approaches and opportunities for ELL learners to go at a different pace and add more opportunities for speaking, reading, seeing and hearing are included with the online text book sections that can be utilized for different learners, the YPAR focus groups will be varied and can be geared to differences in interest, and learning needs. (Framework adapted from the Chicago Grass Roots Curriculum Toolkit 4.0)
Essential Questions:
1. What injustice is promoted and perpetuated by science and society related lactose intolerance?
2. How can we collectively design and implement a solution to a real problem?
3. How can we use scientific and action research as tools of power to advocate and improve health and justice in our communities?
Culminating Learning Action/Product/Assessment?
6-week Option: From exploring factors that affect their health and public health, and understanding them in the context of a biased presentation of those factors, students will work collectively to solve an issue or a problem involving lactose intolerance by doing participatory active research and scientific inquiry and writing a proposal, report, and making a presentation to a wider audience of mentors, community members and other stakeholders in the issue.
3 Week Option: An option that would not be a YPAR, but would be an important social justice action, that would take half the time, is to rewrite the original biased text book chapter on the subject and have it published through the online open sourced text book where it came from.
Essential Threads: culture, health, oppression, race, rewriting science.
Other Understandings Students Will/May Gain:
They may learn about foods, other than dairy products that provide valuable nutrients
They may learn things about their own family members and people in their community.
Main Texts:
· Bias Analysis Text: Got Milk?
· Enzymes as Catalysts Text and video
· The Text and video about East African evolution of lactase persistence
· The tools of Action Research
· The literature sources they will research such as demographic information, the causes and effects of lactose intolerance, the school lunch program policies, and others, depending on the specific question/problem of their YPAR.
Critical Vocabulary: lactose, lactose intolerance, lactase, lactase persistence, mutation, gene allele, evolution, enzyme, activation energy, enzyme specificity, active site, substrate, YPAR, survey, interview, focus group, types of bias.
Applicable Disciplines and Specific Standards: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Language Arts
Key Competencies: Conducting research, conducting scientific inquiry, writing informational texts, writing arguments, reading informational texts, making a presentation, understanding how enzymes affect human beings.
Primary Instructional Approaches: Discussions and discourse in a whole class and small focus group settings, laboratory experiments, conducting research, creating reports and presentations, bias analysis, critical examination of society and science.
Community Connections: Field trip to local recreation centers, churches, libraries and other areas where community members can be gathered for students to be able to conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Connections to scientist mentors through the internet, perhaps a field trip. Final presentation for invited members of the community, school and district administrators, policy makers, mentors and other stakeholders in the project.
Modification/ Differentiation: Three different versions of the scientific investigation that contain different amounts of structure and open endedness on enzymes, links and multi-modal approaches and opportunities for ELL learners to go at a different pace and add more opportunities for speaking, reading, seeing and hearing are included with the online text book sections that can be utilized for different learners, the YPAR focus groups will be varied and can be geared to differences in interest, and learning needs. (Framework adapted from the Chicago Grass Roots Curriculum Toolkit 4.0)