The Great Diseases: Bringing Cutting-edge Biomedical Science to the High School Classroom
From Berri Jacque and Karina Meiri
We can engage our high school students in science by mirroring their real world experiences in the classroom. A particularly good opportunity is to involve them in learning about the science behind health and disease. High school students value learning about these topics—they understand that they all fall sick and they realize they will need to manage their healthcare as they become adults. They appreciate that in the 21st century managing their health requires them to understand something of the underlying science. But here a problem arises—like their students, few teachers have been exposed to the 21st century science behind health and disease, and few resources exist to translate this critical information for their students. Thus an important teaching and learning opportunity is often lost.

To plug this gap, Tufts University biomedical scientists and Boston Public School teachers teamed up with the goal of building a high school curriculum focused on disease. We wanted to engage students with biology that is relevant to their lives, while also teaching the competency in problem solving and critical thinking that promote scientific and health literacy. Our product, "The Great Diseases”, is an inquiry-based, constructivist curriculum targeted to Biology II and focused on diseases that impact global health (Infectious, Neurological, Metabolic and Cancer). Each disease module fills approximately 6-weeks of in-class time and provides life-relevant content aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. Each disease module is divided into 5 week-long units that ask key questions about the disease in question, like: “What does it mean to have an infectious disease?” “How do our choices change our brains?” “How do I identify ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods?” “How does a normal cell become cancerous?” The lessons are designed around extensive discussions and use multiple pedagogies for different types of learners. Since 2009, when we rolled out the first module, thousands of students across the US and their teachers have given us overwhelmingly positive feedback on engagement, and our evaluations show impressive student gains in content knowledge, critical thinking and problem solving abilities—and importantly, in their belief they are capable of understanding the material. Tellingly, we usually see dramatic increases in numbers of students taking the course as word gets around.

From the beginning, our team was aware that any curriculum is only as good as the support it offers the teachers who are implementing it in their classroom. So in addition to the freely downloadable lesson materials (a detailed narrative of the lesson structure that describes the discussions and activities; all lesson materials including videos and power points; student worksheets, assessments and workbooks), we offer several different kinds of mentored support for in-service teachers: For teachers who can travel, we offer summer professional development workshops for all of the modules in Boston and, when demand is sufficient, in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Berkeley, California. For teachers who can’t travel in the summer, we have teamed up with Lesley University to offer an online course in teaching about Infectious Disease (other modules are under development). Courses are free if taken for PD points, but we make a small charge for graduate credits. More informally, we can pair teachers with scientist mentors familiar with the curriculum who offer virtual tutoring (Skype or g-chat) as they prepare and implement the material in the classroom. We also offer all teachers "Just-in Time" support to answer your questions by text, email or call while teaching the curriculum. Our goal is to help you succeed in teaching this material, whatever it takes! As one of our teachers preparing to teach "The Great Diseases” said: "Having a live' person to walk through each unit before I introduced it to my class was like having my own mini-college throw-back seminar. Or better than that, it was like (finally) a useful in-service where teachers are introduced to something that seems theoretical AND also given the practical application for the classroom. Wow! What a concept!”

Check out the Great Diseases website. For learning how to download the material and for professional development information, please contact Berri Jacque.

Dr. Berri Jacque (Co-director) and Dr. Karina Meiri (Director), The Center for Translational Science Education, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston MA.

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