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Lesson Plan and Project: Use Glogster to Describe an Infectious Disease

What is an Infectious Disease and How do you Prevent it?

Our body comes into contact with many harmful microorganisms every day. Thankfully, most of us have a healthy immune system capable of fighting off invasive viruses, bacteria and parasites at the cellular level. Constant battles are being fought on a tiny battlefield, and understanding these processes are key to staying healthy.

In this lesson, students will use the Glogster virtual poster making platform to create multimedia posters exploring various pathogens, how they can affect us, how our body fights them off, and how they might affect us today.

BC Curricular Connections

Science 8: Life processes are performed at the cellular level.

ADST 8: Complex tasks require the acquisition of additional skills; Complex tasks may require multiple tools and technologies.

Introduction:
-What are some things you have heard about the COVID-19 virus (also called the novel coronavirus)? Why do you think they tell you to wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and avoid travel or large gatherings of people? Why does this matter to you if it's mostly dangerous to older people or those with compromised immune systems?

-Show the SciShow video 6 Diseases That Have Shaped Human History

-What kinds of organisms were responsible for the diseases in the video? (viruses, bacteria) These tiny organisms can have major effects on human health and, as you saw, on our history. The COVID-19 virus has already caused major shifts in the way we live our lives: travel has slowed, the economy is dropping in many countries, and there are fewer greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere.

Creating a Glogster Poster:
-Students will be working on posters in pairs. Each pair of students will choose a different infectious disease and create a poster to explain how it has affected the planet. The poster will describe if the disease is a virus, bacteria or parasite, how it affects the body, how we can fight it, what effects it has had on history, and how it might affect us today or in the future.
-Show students an example Glogster multimedia poster, like this one on Ebola.

Image of Glogster multimedia poster on Ebola. Click here for interactive version on Glogster.
-Demonstrate to students how to log in to Glogster and then how to create their own Glogster multimedia poster ("glog").


-Give students instructions and criteria for the creation of their own glog. Students can include a wide variety of media to create their glog - they can include videos they record or find on YouTube, links to internet articles, music or their own recorded audio, and clips of text, either quoted from elsewhere or written themselves of course.

Lesson Wrap-Up and Follow-Up:
-Allow students time to select a partner and infectious disease to work on and some time to research or practice with Glogster. By the end of class they should have selected a disease and partner and opened a file to create their glog. Keep a list of which students are working on which disease to avoid overlap.
-Students will need further time with the computers for research and to complete their glog. Consider further collaborative lessons with your teacher-librarian to help them with their research skills!

Lesson Modifications: Other Ways to Include Glogs in the Classroom

 The possibilities for glogs are practically endless.
-Glogs can be used to create multimedia presentations of final research projects, to collect sources for research, or to summarize learning in a unit in just about any subject.
-Science: create a glog to describe lab procedures and results.
-English Language Arts: Collect media related with a character in a story or on a given theme.
-Arts Education (or Music!): Create a collection of art of a certain style, theme, topic, etc. Create a glog that describes you as a person in various media.
-Math: Create a glog that describes variations on a mathematical principle such as proportion, fraction, angles, etc.

Citations

 droyal77 (2019). Ebola Disease. Retrieved from https://edu.glogster.com/glog/ebola/2vlkqlabgp4?=glogpedia-source

Jonson, Jen (Mar 11, 2013). How to Use Glogster or eduGlogster. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij7KTcl0QEk&t=330s

SciShow (April 15, 2018). 6 Diseases That Have Shaped Human History. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJcmxyTltlk
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