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Showing posts from March, 2016

Sharing the Planet with Pathogens

...and we all fall down. Some say that the nursery rhyme arose from the great plague of London in 1665, though many folklorists disagree. I rather like the sinister connotations attached to such a seemingly innocuous rhyme. Whatever the source of the rhyme, there is no doubt that a viral attack snuffed out over a 100, 000 lives. It is interesting to note how our students reacted to this. Some of these microorganisms are so beautiful while others are downright creepy! The students couldn't help but be fascinated by this unseen world and how much it affected their daily lives. In order to understand the basic difference between a bacteria and a virus, we chose the venn diagram to fish out the details. A fishbone graphic organizer helped the students to see how a disease spreads and how we can tackle it, once aware of its characteristics. This sorting out phase is crucial in making thinking visible, almost tangible. The map helped the stu