Vector 

a) Noun: An organism that transmits a pathogen 

b) Verb 1: To guide something or someone in flight

c) Verb 2: To change the direction for steering 

 

Vectors spread disease; but they also change direction. We have seen how COVID-19 has upended the world and has laid bare social problems on local, national, and global scales. Social problems like racial and class inequality, poverty, and diseases have existed long before the pandemic, but the pandemic has magnified their effects and drawn renewed attention to them.  It’s time to change direction. How can we become vectors for change?

 

 

Students identified a topic that they will research for the next four weeks. Each week, students develop a different question and choose a menu deliverable that addresses their topic.  Student questions or topic did not have to be related to COVID-19 but should be issues that we have learned more about since the onset of the pandemic.  Menu items include but at not limited to visual representations of scientific data, argument essays, stakeholder interviews, infographics, simulations and scientific models. 

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TEACHERS: 

Peter Jana & David Hamilton, Humanities

Kalle Applegate Palmer, Biology

 

 

 

 

PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS

 

Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms. HS-LS1-2 

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Evaluate the evidence for the role of group behavior on individual and species’ chances to survive and reproduce. HS-LS2-8

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DISCIPLINARY  CORE IDEAS

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ETS1.B:  Developing Possible Solutions: When evaluating solutions it is important to take into account a range of constraints including cost, safety, reliability and aesthetics and to consider social, cultural and environmental impacts. (secondary to HS-LS2-7), (secondary to HS-LS4-6)

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CROSS CUTTING CONCEPTS

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Stability and Change: Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system. (HS-LS1-3)

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Cause and Effect: Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects. (HS-LS2-8), (HS-LS4-6)

 

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity: The significance of a phenomenon is dependent on the scale, proportion, and quantity at which it occurs. (HS-LS2-1)

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Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale. (HS-LS2-2)

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Stability and Change: Much of science deals with constructing explanations of how things change and how they remain stable. (HS-LS2-6), (HS-LS2-7)

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