Sickle Cell Anemia Investigation

February 21, 2020 Dan_Smalley

Off

I want to share how I am leading my students through our unit on molecular biology with a narrative of sickle cell anemia (SCA).

Day 1: Introduce the problem of sickle cell anemia

Living with sickle cell disease Shaniya’s story is a video produced by St. Jude’s Medical Research Hospital. It introduces the real life struggles of a courageous high school student who has Sickle Cell Anemia. Having a narrative that the kids can cling to really helps to engage them in the value of learning about this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEYqP8iZ8TE \

Next, I introduced the driving questions or problem that we will be looking at.

#1 How does the gene for sickle cell anemia cause such dramatic changes in people’s health?

#2 Why has the disease sickle cell anemia become such a widespread problem in certain regions of the world?

I showed the students an image of where the incidence of SCA is in the world.

This is a pause about 20 min. into a 45 minute lesson to get students moving and assess whether they have learned anything and are willing to learn.

I collected these and read them to the class in four minutes. I am careful to praise genuine curiosity and correct early misconceptions about the concept.

Do not apologize for asking for memorization from your students early in a learning cycle. Higher levels of understanding can only come with fundamental vocabulary and clarity. This diagram is simple for my introductory biology course.

At the end of class I made students diagram the process of protein synthesis. They had to copy this diagram three times in their lab notebooks for homework.

Comments are closed.

Sickle Cell Anemia Investigation

Kansas Association of Biology Teachers

Search By Keyword

KABT Membership Application