Overview | In this lesson, students consider their knowledge about and associations with cancer. After reading up on new recommendations to limit cancer screenings, they develop patient fact sheets about cancer, focusing on treatments and screening techniques.
Materials | Computers with Internet access, resources for researching cancer, poster paper, markers.
Warm-Up | Hang several sheets of poster paper around the room, and place a set of markers beside each poster. Write the word ?cancer? in the middle of each poster and circle it. Divide the class into as many groups as there are posters, and tell each group to create a word web on the paper, using ?cancer? as a starting point.
They should use free association and brainstorming, as well as reflective thinking and knowledge retrieval, to add words and phrases to the poster. Tell them to share everything from personal associations to scientific knowledge to news about high-profile people with cancer, like the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died of pancreatic cancer, and the television personality Giuliana Rancic, who went public recently with her early-stage breast cancer diagnosis. They should respond both to the original term and to one another?s words and phrases to create a word web or cluster.
Give each group three minutes to brainstorm and write, then reconvene as a class to look at the word webs as a volunteer from each group reads their web aloud. Ask: Are there common terms or themes? What else do you notice? At this point, do not clear up any misconceptions. If students notice any, leave them as questions and set them aside for the time being.
Finally, tell students they will now read a New York Times article about cancer screenings and how some in the healthcare community are changing their perspectives on the value of frequent screenings. Afterward, they will revisit their associations with cancer and get the facts.
Related | In the news analysis article ?Considering When it Might Be Best Not to Know About Cancer,? Gina Kolata reviews a shift in perspective on the benefits of widespread screening for certain cancers:
After decades in which cancer screening was promoted as an unmitigated good, as the best ? perhaps only ? way for people to protect themselves from the ravages of a frightening disease, a pronounced shift is under way.
Now expert groups are proposing less screening for prostate, breast and cervical cancer and have emphasized that screening comes with harms as well as benefits.
Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.
Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:
- Which organization concluded that women in their 40s do not benefit from mammograms, and that a common screening test for prostate cancer does not save lives? What is this organization?s role in the government?
- Why were these conclusions controversial?
- What evidence suggests that cancer screenings may do more harm than good?
- What do supporters of cancer screenings say to counter that evidence?
- One physician quoted in the article said, ?We are going from an 1845 definition of cancer to a 21st-century definition of cancer.? What does that mean? What might the 21st-century definition of cancer be?
RELATED RESOURCES
From The Learning Network
From NYTimes.com
Around the Web
Activity | Tell students they they will now work in pairs or groups of three to create patient information fact sheets about one of the following specific aspects of cancer: prevention, treatment, screening and living with cancer. In addition to basic background information, fact sheets should incorporate either a frequently asked questions or facts and figures approach.
To begin, return to the word webs students completed during the warm up activity. Tell each group to choose a word or phrase that stands out and around which they can build a useful fact sheet. This is an opportunity to develop further knowledge and address misconceptions.
For example, if someone wrote ?deadly? on a word web, a group could write a Q. and A .fact sheet that starts like this:
Q: Is cancer deadly?
A: Not necessarily.
The rest of the sheet would contain details, facts and figures that explain why that?s the case.
Students might start by listing questions they have about their specific topic, or by pulling additional words and phrases from the word webs into questions to answer in their sheets.
Resources for facts about cancer prevention, treatment and screening, as well as information about living with cancer, can be found on the Times Health Guides on tumors and cancer, as well as the Web sites of the American Cancer Society and the Resources for Living With and Through Cancer and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s resources on cancer prevention.
You may wish to make sure that among the topics are the specific screening recommendations for various types of cancer, including prostate cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer.
After they review these resources, allow ample time for students to assemble their fact sheets. Encourage them to use facts, statistics and explanations along with images, charts and graphs. When students have finished their fact sheets, have each group share and provide feedback to classmates.
If desired, see whether the fact sheets might be displayed or distributed in the community, perhaps at the local library or in a doctor?s office or clinic.
Going Further | Individually, students write informed essays about whether they agree or disagree with the recommendation of the United States Preventive Services Task force to delay screenings for some cancers and the ethical issues raised by their recommendations, drawing on the fact sheets that they and their classmates created.
Standards | This lesson is correlated to McREL?s national standards (it can also be aligned to the new Common Core State Standards):
Science
4. Understands the principles of heredity and related concepts.
5. Understands the structure and function of cells and organisms.
13. Understands the scientific enterprise.
Health Education
1. Knows and uses health care terminology.
2. Understands the history and trends of health care, both past and present.
4. Understands how technology is used in the health care industry.
Health
1. Knows the availability and effective use of health services, products and information.
2. Knows environmental and external factors that affect individual and community health.
Language Arts
1. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process.
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
Life Skills: Life Work
2. Uses various information sources, including those of a technical nature, to accomplish specific tasks.
Life Skills: Working with Others
1. Contributes to the overall effort of a group.
4. Displays effective interpersonal communication skills.
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