Vaccines: building confidence and tackling mistrust

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology and ICT.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks (UK):
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Constance Blomgren, Dr Karen Cook and Dr Stella George of Athabasca University, Canada. They have co-developed an open educational resource animation that explores how to approach concerns and misconceptions around vaccines.

• This resource also includes advice on how to evaluate the information that you find online and explains how Connie, Karen and Stella co-created their animation with students and community groups. If your students have questions for Connie, Karen and Stella, they can send them through the Futurum Careers website.

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Connie, Karen and Stella’s research and challenges them to practice evaluating information that they find on the internet.

This resource was first published by Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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