Teacher's Notes - More Than Skin Deep

Objectives

By the end of this lesson the student should be able to:

Identify common means for minimizing your risk to exposure to pesticides and herbicides

Identify common diseases caused by parasites or the diseases carried by parasites

Identify important ways to protect yourself from the sun's ultraviolet rays

Lesson Description

This lesson attempts to help students understand how to protect themselves from environmental hazards that commonly enter through the skin. In discussing pesticides, the lesson emphasizes that while they are very helpful to us in terms of protecting us from problems associated with insect pests, we do have to take certain precautions to keep them from harming us. The section on parasites discusses food-borne parasites as well as those that produce harmful effects as a result of their bites. The section on the adverse effects of too much sun is especially important. Because of its delayed effects, ultraviolet radiation is not commonly thought of as harmful.

Assessment

There is a pre-test and a post-test for each lesson which must be printed before they are administered. Click here for the key to both tests.

Activities and Assignments

After students have read the lesson, have them work individually or in small groups on the "Slime Sleuths at Toxic Island" activity. The activity is a mystery game where students will be asked to find out what toxic substance made the patient sick and the source of the substance. Reading time for each lesson will vary, however, each "Slime Sleuth" activity should not take more than 20 minutes. There is a different "Slime Sleuth" activity for each lesson, however, to encourage problem solving, the problem presented in the activity may or may not be related to the information in the lesson. Each computer used for the lesson activity will need an Authorware web player plug-in. Click here for the plug-in.

Standards Targeted

The Texas Middle School Science and Technology Standards targeted in this lesson can be found by clicking here.