Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code provides free lesson plans and storyline units to help guide high school students as they explore various genetics and genomics concepts. Units will culminate in community-focused projects. This program is Session 1 of a two-part seminar series.  Register for Session 2.

Session 1 of this series will focus on introducing participants to the Food Allergy Storyline and the first half of the unit.

Storylines start with an anchoring phenomenon that introduces a question or problem. Each step in a storyline unit is then driven by students’ questions that arise from the phenomenon. In this case, the anchoring phenomenon is something familiar yet still mysterious to this generation of students - bans of certain foods in their cafeterias and classrooms. Students will probably be able to connect the bans to food allergies but might not be able to explain why a person has food allergies.

The first day of the unit allows students to consider what they do and don't know about food allergies and what they want to find out. This gives them a reason for investigating the biological mechanism behind food allergies and intolerances. In doing so, they will make sense of Disciplinary Core Ideas related to genetics and genomics. The seven lesson, 14-day lesson sequence allows students to develop science ideas related to LS1.A Structure and Function and LS3.A Inheritance of Traits.

All individuals receive a certificate of participation and 100 NSTA activity points for attending the live seminar and completing the end-of-program survey. A certificate of participation is not awarded for watching the recorded version of the program.

We invite you to register for upcoming web seminars at NSTA.