Investigating immunity: uncovering the mechanisms of the immune system

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.

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 Leslie Berg and Assistant Professor Aimee Pugh Bernard, immunologists at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. They are gaining a deeper understanding of how our immune cells function by investigating signalling pathways in T cells.

• This resource also contains an interview with Leslie and Aimee and offers an insight into careers in immunology. If your students have questions for Leslie and Aimee, they can send them to them online. All they 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). Leslie and Aimee will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Leslie and Aimee’s research and challenges them to design a fun and interactive lesson to teach younger children about vaccinations and immunology.

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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