Submitted by: Vonita Giddings
School: Henrico High School
Summary
Students were challenged to learn about biology through the lens the moral and ethical dilemmas involved with scientific research. To accomplish this, students learned about the gift that Henrietta Lacks unknowingly gave to the world through scientific research using her harvested cervical cancer cells. Students read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” over the course of the year. They used a collaborative Google document to create questions. Because students pulished information to the web, they received instruction on information fluency skills and copyright laws. After creating questions, students voted to select the best questions to further explore. All questions were recorded on the blog and the chosen questions were used for the artistic designs project. This project was designed to express a compilation of the values of the content of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to the scientific world, Mrs. Lacks’ family, and to humanity at large in both the past and the present. Each student was required to create an original expression through some type of media that reflected an answer to the random question that he or she chose and were tasked to relate this theme to their own life experiences. As a part of the project, students participated in a hands-on field trip to the Massey Cancer Center where they learned about Henrietta’s contribution to scientific research and cell and tissue culture techniques which were made possible by the Hela cell.The culmination of the project was to have the students to participate in a fishbowl style Socratic Seminar in which they debated the ethics of medical scientific research on the side of humanity as well as the scientific community.
photo credit: jazzijava via photopin cc
TIPC Ratings
Students received instruction in internet safety, information fluency and copyright law in the beginning. Throughout the year, students used those skills to conduct a literature review for the Socratic seminar, online research to inform their short paper, and to select resources as part of the artistic expressions project.
Students wrote critical questions regarding the content of the assigned chapters, they shared their questions as a group on a Google doc, they voted to determine which questions were the best, and then posted and responded to the selected questions that were placed on the blog. Students collaborated with scientists at the Massey Cancer Center to compare and contrast Hela cells and normal cells and to understand the research process. Students met with Massey Cancer Center Leaders to discuss the value of medical research. Students formed random teams, prepared for and conducted a Socratic seminar to debate whether scientific research values humanity.
After reading each chapter, students composed critical thinking questions and recorded and shared them on a Google document. As a group they collaborated to analyze the questions and then selected the most relevant ones to respond to on a blog. Students answered the questions and responded to others’ answers. The students were tasked with doing a literature search to compare and contrast the pros and cons of the Henrietta Lacks Hela case. Students wrote questions on random teams to support a fishbowl style debate either supporting the interests of the family and humanity or the scientific research community.
Students selected a question from the reading and artistically expressed the idea or theme in that question and related it to their own lives using a medium of their own choice. The expression could take any form, but must contain a visual aspect and must be presented to the class in five minutes or less. Students created movies, presentation, songs, and other tangible artifacts; and presented them explaining how the theme in their questions was reflectted in the artwork.
Contents:Lesson Plan and Materials, Artifacts
