Diseases of Africa

Students will demonstrate an ability to research diseases in Africa and the causes, symptoms, treatment, and long-range solutions involving infrastructure development. They will compare and contrast countries and diseases. Working in groups, students will do research and prepare a multimedia presentation on the disease.

A lesson plan for grade 7 English Language Development and Social Studies

By Jim Carson

Provided by Teachers Connect

Learn more

• World Health Organization The organization's mission is to raise the world's level of health care; this site promotes their efforts and an accurate representation of the health situations and standards around the world.

Related pages

• Lesson Planning for English Language Learners Using the WIDA/ELP Standards: Online course syllabus: Syllabus for "Lesson Planning for English Language Learners Using the WIDA/ELP Standards," a course that provides ESL and regular K-12 classroom teachers an opportunity to plan lessons using the new NC Standard Course of Study for Limited English Proficient students known as the WIDA/ELP Standards.
• Writing and English as a Second Language: Strategies for helping English Language Learners throughout the writing process.
• Reaching Latinos through social studies: Teachers can help immigrant students feel more comfortable in the classroom by basing social studies lessons on students' own knowledge and backgrounds.

Related topics

• Learn more about Africa, English language learners, Hyperstudio, cooperative learning, diseases, problem-solving, research, social studies, and story board.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• demonstrate an ability to research diseases in Africa
• research the causes, symptoms, treatment and long range solutions involving infrastructure development
• learn to work in cooperative groups
• compare and contrast countries and diseases
• prepare a multimedia presentation on the disease
• complete a semantic feature analysis of diseases
• read the introduction, bold print, topics, conclusion of a selection and thus predict and outline the probable information
• search an electronic encyclopedia
• respond to and evaluate another student’s presentation holistically
• draw conclusions from the research
• use a graphic organizer to organize the presentation beforehand
• determine additional uses for this information

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3 weeks

Materials/resources

• encyclopedias
• books of African countries
• copy or notebook paper

Technology resources

• Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (optional)
• PowerPoint or HypterStudio (optional)
• desktop publishing (optional)
• access to internet (optional)

Note: If there is no access to PowerPoint or Hyperstudio or another multimedia computer program, a word processing program can be used.

Pre-activities

Students will read the background information on regions of Africa. They will go to the library and select books on each area. After checking them out the students will divide into groups of two and list the names of the diseases mentioned in the books. (Note: as a search skill have them look in the back of the books under health, diseases, contagious diseases, or another listing that will take them to the pages on diseases.) They will come up with a list such as typhoid, river blindness, schistosomiasis, yaws, leprosy, bubonic plague, kwashiorkor, ebola hemorrhagic fever, dysentery, as well as AIDS and others.

Activities

Activity 1

1. Give the students the following problem:

   “You are a leading member of an international medical team that has been assigned to treat the disease you are researching. Prepare a multimedia presentation or a report for the governing body of the organization on the disease, how serious the spread of the disease is, what immediate treatments you can provide, and what the long range solutions to the disease are. Along with the latter you will have to figure out problems with the short range treatments and your long range plan to handle the disease. These problems include costs, ethical considerations within each country, religious beliefs and current medical practices.”

2. Assign students to groups of two. The two are to divide up the tasks before them. They are to use at least three references (the Africa book, any magazine articles, an electronic encyclopedia and/or a book encyclopedia.)
3. The tasks are as follows: research the disease (causes, symptoms, treatment, long range solutions), figure out an organization for the presentation, find references and read them while taking notes. Have them do a specific task for homework.

Activity 2

1. Once students have researched the disease, give them a story board and tell them that they will be creating a multimedia presentation on the disease. The presentation is to be made up of at least six slides and no more than twelve slides.
2. Once they have finished the story board, have them create the cards they will be using. A story board is created by placing three three-by-six-inch rectangular boxes on a piece of copy paper or notebook paper.

Optional: Internet

If you have access to the internet in your school check, out the World Health Organization homepage which has a complete summary of news releases over the past six years on disease outbreaks throughout the world. It is a good source for students to find in-depth material on the diseases, and a good way for them to search the internet for specific topics.

Activity 3

Presentation

• Students then are ready to create the PowerPoint (or Hyperstudio) multimedia presentation. They may work in pairs. Tell them to create no fewer than six and no more than twelve slides in their presentation.
• The entire presentation should inform the international governing board of the causes, symptoms, countries where the disease is located, treatment, and one or two long range solutions to the problem and a bibliography giving credit to their references.
• Extra credit: have them figure out how much this will cost for the short range solution and the long range solution.

Alternative Method

As an alternative for those schools that do not have PowerPoint, students may create one of the following products:

• a brochure on the disease
• a research paper on the disease with an oral presentation
• a booklet that has a drawing of the bacteria or fungus, places where the disease is found and other illustrations, charts and graphs that are relevant to the disease along with captions
• a play depicting a family affected by the disease and its impact upon them
• a six to twelve page booklet on what would have been in a presentation

Assessment

Have the students as a group develop a rubric for what would be a good way of evaluating the final products before they start the final product. This way they can keep the group’s expectations in mind while they are producing. My students came up with the following categories for evaluating this product:

• Followed the directions accurately.
• Presentation had illustrations as well as words.
• Easy to read and follow.

On a scale of one to four, they came up with criteria for each. By walking them through how to evaluate a product, they will see that there are criteria that people use to judge presentations, writing and other products. You as the teacher should judge the student on his/her performance based on what you know about them. Did they give 100%, turn it in on time, and try hard? Then they get an A. Did they goof off and do a shoddy job, but they finished? Perhaps a C or lower. Did they not do the product? Then it is non-gradable and they must do it outside of class time either after school or at home. I have found that if students have confidence that their product will be seen by others and judged by others, they will do it. They came up with the following evaluation criteria, but I encourage teachers to walk their students through their own criteria. It not only allows them to write and create according to expectations, but helps them see that evaluation is not just in the eye of the beholder.

Rubrics

Followed Directions Accurately?

• 4—The presentation included all aspects of the assignment: causes, symptoms, treatment, long range solutions. They had a bibliography with at least three references. The research showed a thorough understanding of the topic and was presented in a logical and readable manner.
• 3—Most of the aspects of the assignment were completed, but there were a few flaws and some details left out.
• 2—The student completed the assignment, but it was hard to understand at times and somewhat sloppy. Left out details.
• 1—The student tried to work on the assignment, but the final presentation showed a lack of attention to detail, and was done sloppily.

Illustrations as Well as Words?

• 4—The final presentation showed illustrations and explanations in words. A variety of illustrations were in the presentation. The illustrations helped the overall presentation.
• 3—The final presentation had some illustrations, but there were a few flaws and details missing.
• 2—The student tried to do some illustrations, but relied too much on words.
• 1—The overall presentation is hard to understand and there are no illustrations.

Easy to Read and Follow?

• 4—Overall the presentation was easy to read, the organization has a logical flow, and was interesting.
• 3—Overall the presentation was pretty easy to read, but there were a few questions that came up because some ideas are unclear.
• 2—The assignment was completed and all parts included, but there were some problems with organization and confusion.
• 1—The presentation was completed, but it was confusing and the presenter showed little concern for his/her audience’s ability to follow it.

Supplemental information

Modifications

• Allow ELLs to use encyclopedias for research.
• Allow ELLs to fill in a graphic organizer with single words.
• Allow ELLs to work in groups to create a brochure using sentence starters created by the teacher.

Alternative assessments

1. Use a holistic rubric for the brochure.
2. Close passage including a word bank.

Critical vocabulary

Critical vocabulary should be taught by modeling and/or using pictures and synonyms.

• disease
• symptom
• cause
• cure
• treatment
• regional