Teaching overview
Learning points
- Volunteers have spent 40 days inside a cave without any means of telling the time. Researchers studying the group hope their findings will help people adapt to other challenging situations.
- A new malaria vaccine has been trialed. It has proven to be 77% effective in stopping people catching the disease.
- A seawater-powered lamp is providing light to communities that don't have a reliable electricity supply.
Curriculum keywords
- Psychology
- Vaccines
- Sustainability
Video viewing guide
This graphic organizer supports your students to capture their thoughts and questions as they watch the news update.
Spark a discussion
Living Without Clocks
- Imagine you don't have a watch or a clock. What are some other ways you could keep track of time?
- How do you think the cave experiment could help scientists predict how humans will cope with long-haul space travel?
- If you had to spend 40 days in a cave, how would you keep yourself entertained?
Malaria Vaccine
- Malaria is caused by a type of organism called a parasite. Do you know what a parasite is? Can you think of any other examples of parasites?
- How do you think malaria spreads from person to person?
- How could a malaria vaccine change people’s lives?
Seawater-Powered Lamp
- Lamps that are powered by sunlight are already available. Why do you think the seawater-powered lamp might be more useful?
- Can you think of any problems with the lamp’s design, or ways to improve it?
- Think about your own daily life. Would you find a saltwater-powered lamp useful? Why or why not?
Discover more about the topics covered in this week's News update
Classroom resources
Use these resources to get the most out of the news update and engage your class in topical science!
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Video viewing guide
This graphic organizer supports your students to capture their thoughts and questions as they watch the news update.
Make your own science news update
This simple guide helps your students to create their very own science news updates.
Language and literacy activities
This guide gives you ideas for how the news update can be used to support language and literacy activities.
Twig Science: A Complete Pre-K–8 Program for the NGSS
Immersive Investigations with High-Quality Multimedia
- Investigating, designing, building, and understanding phenomena
- Hands-on, digital, video, and print investigations
- Synchronous/asynchronous distance learning