Focus: In this unit, students investigate the phenomenon of healing. More than that though, students examine the nature of the human body and the systems and cells that comprise it. The subtitle of this unit is How do living things heal? Phenomena such as the healing of a cut, a scrape, or a broken bone are things that students have some experience with from everyday life. But how does the body go about this healing process, what are the steps and what systems are involved? What is the role of cells and tissues, or nerves and blood in healing? How is the process of growth like that of healing? How can this knowledge then be applied to helping those with physical disabilities? Students then spend time working with classmates to analyze the shared experience, formulate new questions, and developing new strategies for answering them. Students explore concepts that include the following:
- What do our bones, skin, and muscles do for us?
- How can medical images and diagrams help us figure out more about the structures in our body?
- Why is there blood in all these places in the body?
- Why do the Moon and Sun appear to change color near the horizon?
- What will we see if we look at skin, bone, and muscle with the microscope, too?
- Are all things made of cells?
- How can shifting our perceptions of ability and disability allow us to be more thoughtful about how we make our environments more accessible?
As students move through their day-to-day activities, they will also read Core Knowledge literacy selections. These include factual articles, history of the sciences, art and literature, spotting bad science in the media and advertisements, graphics comprehension, research-type articles, reliability of sources, and other areas of science literacy.
Lesson Numbers:
- Teacher Guide: 14 Lessons
- Student Reader: 3 Collections
Lesson time:
- Lesson can be competed in one or more class periods.
- A Pacing Guide, found in Online Resources, offers the suggestion that the entire unit should take about 25 days to complete if class is held each day.
- A complete list of materials needed to complete the unit is also provided in the Online Resources.
- The Core Knowledge Student Reader includes one reading collection per week for every week of the unit. A week’s reading collection relates to the lessons completed in the previous week.
- The reading is assigned at the beginning of the week with the accompanying writing exercise due at the end of the week.
- The reading and writing exercises are designed to be completed by students independently, with brief, supporting, teacher-facilitated discussions at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the week.
Additional Search Terms for the Student Reader:
• science literacy • human body • healing • cells • body systems • tissue • amputation • exoskeleton • endoskeleton • orbit • sensory systems • metabolism • MRI • X-ray • CT scan • stem cells • nonfiction • informational text
