Learning about cancer and melanoma

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/biology clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
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 Professor Marianne Berwick from the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center, USA. A cancer researcher, she works on various projects that seek to understand melanoma and its causes, including genetics, treatments and prognosis.

• This resource also contains an interview with Marianne about her career path. If your students (or you) have questions for Marianne, you/they can send them to the researchers online. All you need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Marianne will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Marianne’s research and challenges them to think about the impact of cancer on those around them.

• The PowerPoint reiterates the key points in the article.

This resource was first published on 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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