Health Without Borders - The Immune System

Check out our latest lesson on the Immune System in Health Without Borders, a student created MOOC in iTunes U.  Our course currently has close to 30,000 subscribers from around the world.  So far we have heard from Cambodia, Venezuela, Ukraine, and Australia, not to mention all the schools in the U.S. 

We would love to have you join us in our global classroom.   

This course is being developed by high school students in Coppell, Texas.

Our target audience is 3rd - 5th grade, but all are welcome!

Health Without Borders-A Healthy Body and The Immune System

All resources, links, and apps are found in iTunes U Health Without Borders.  All you need to do is subscribe to our course to access everything.  Click the section called Healthy Body for this lesson. If you do not have an iPad or iPhone for access to iTunes U, contact me at jdeinhammer@coppellisd.com for other ways to participate.

INTRODUCTION: Blogger Challenge!

Take a health challenge with your class.  How can you prevent the spread of infectious disease in your community?  How can you prevent getting sick?  Challenge your friends and family to make a change to create a healthier society.  What will you do?  At the conclusion of the challenge, have each student (depending on their age) write a brief reflection of what they did and what they thought about it.  Take the best student responses and post them to our blog and we will respond to your students.  You can post as many responses as you would like or students can post themselves.  Click here for a direct link to our class BLOG.

EXPLORE:  The Immune System and Germ Spread

Try this demonstration by Scholastic to show your class how quickly germs spread around the room and school.  Its messy...but fun! :)

LEARN:  Tutorials, books, presentations!

Use the READ and WATCH section in iTunes U to access student developed tutorials and teaching materials.

DESIGN:  Can you change your environment for the better?  

Use the DESIGN section in iTunes U to have your students design a wellness campaign for your school. Your students could create promotional material for their plan and share with us!  

REVIEW:  Fun apps and websites

Use the provided fun apps and websites to review the immune system and healthy lifestyles choices. The Adventures of Doc Flu is our favorite app this time!

SKYPE:  Want to talk to us?

We would love your feedback on the lesson.  What did you learn? What questions do you still have?  We would also love to discuss how your society is different than ours in Texas!!  Skype name: jdeinhammer

P.S...its all free :)

Take pictures and share them with us on Twitter using #chsAP or @jdeinhammer!

Student Blogs

For the last four years, my students have taken six weeks challenges to improve their health, such as eat healthy, give up sodas, visit farmers market, run or walk a fun run, etc.  They take what we are learning in Anatomy and Physiology and connect it to their own life.  

I created a blog that explained the various suggested challenges and students reflected on the challenge via a comment on my blog.  I have no idea why I did it this way...and just recently realized how much more sense it makes for them to create their own blogs instead of commenting on a class one.  

Starting this week, my class will be creating their own blogs, using any format or platform they choose. I am going to recommend blogger, wordpress, or one I heard about at TCEA called bulb, although any digital platform would be fine.  They can still choose a challenge that shows how they take what they learn in class and apply it to their life. The process is the same, but now instead of them all commenting on a class blog, they have each created a digital portfolio of their senior year in high school, at least for anatomy class. 

Here are our current six weeks challenges.  These are recommendations and I am always open to students suggesting other ways to demonstrate the connection between class and life. I love giving them options and letting them choose what sounds most interesting to them.  Instead of a worksheet on food choices, how about visiting the local farmers market and talking with farmers, or instead of doing a cookbook lab that has them all calculate their heart rate after walking up the stairs, how about encouraging them to participate in a local fun run?

I think I say this in every post, but giving students choices on how to learn and what to learn makes a huge difference in what they gain from being in your classroom.  

Here are some of my favorite student portfolios ... all shared with permission :)

Lexi - Senior Year Blog
Jodi - Portfolio of Senior Year
Joyce - Choe Blog