Overview
The Drug Unit is a thematic interdisciplinary unit designed for 10th graders at High Tech High. During this unit, students study prescriptive drugs, over the counter drugs, and illicit drugs. Students examine these drugs from historical, societal, biological, and mathematical perspectives. They learn content from the disciplines of chemistry, biology, math, literature, history, and technology. The unit ends with a digital video project. This unit takes into account the design principles of High Tech High: personalization, common intellectual mission, and adult world connection. It also addresses each of High Tech High's learning goals: collaboration, technology, communication, art and design, community ethics and responsibility, and critical thinking.
Drugs were selected as a theme for the two-month unit because the topc is of interest to 10th grade students. Students in high school are increasingly exposed to drugs both illicit and prescriptive. By tenth grade an overwhelming majority of tenth grade students think that drugs such as alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes are "easy to get" (according to a 2002 nationwide survey of over 50,000 American high school students conducted by Monitoring the Future). In addition, roughly 35% of 10th graders reported using an illicit drug within the year. The theme of drugs makes this unit more enticing for tenth graders.
"Drugs" were also selected as a theme for the unit because the topic is very broad, allowing students to examine drugs from many angles and many disciplines. During this unit students learn content from the disciplines of chemistry, biology, math, literature, history, and technology. Students study the chemistry of drugs, learning about chemical bonding, balancing equations, and nomenclature. Students study the effects of drugs on the nervous and endocrine systems. Students study statistics by examining the results of a student survey on drug use and exposure. Students also learn about the history of drugs and about the global drug market. Students examine current societal issues pertaining to drug use, sales, and abuse. Students read literature that discusses drug use and the drug trade. Students also write persuasive essays on drugs. Many of the California State Content Standards for 10th graders are covered in this unit.
This two-month unit culminates in a project in which each student creates a five-minute educational digital video on a drug of their choice. This digital video project requires students to synthesize of many of the difficult concepts and vocabulary introduced throughout the unit. For the digital video project, students must present the history of the drug, the chemistry of the drug, how the drug affects the body, the drugs role in contemporary culture, statistics about the drug, the drugs impact, and a strong anti-drug message. Not only must the video contain these required elements, but the movie must also be professionally organized, formatted, and edited. So, in addition to content synthesis, the drug movie project requires students to apply their research skills, skills in technology, and teamwork skills.
When the digital video is completed, students show their video at a large viewing, where a panel of professionals from the pharmaceutical industry, the media industry, or drug prevention groups critiques the videos. Also, students are required to enter their video in a regional digital movie making contest. This connects their school endeavors to the outside world and further validates their work. This provision of authentic audiences aligns well with the High Tech High design principle of adult world connection.
This drug unit also aligns with High Tech High's design principle of personalization. Each student has a large degree of choice in this movie project. Students not only choose the drug that will be the theme of their movie, but also choose how they would like to present their content. This freedom allows teachers and students to tailor the project to their own interests and needs. Students can choose a drug that interests them; they can also present their content and storyline in a creative way. For example, one student chose to create a video on crystal meth, a drug that both she and other family members have used and abused. Another student, who loved to draw, animated his entire video. Because each student can choose the subject and the avenue for presenting their content, they become personally invested in the project.
Not only does the drug unit incorporate High Tech High's design principles, but it also incorporates High Tech High's learning goals: collaboration, technology, communication, art and design, community ethics and responsibility, and critical thinking. Students collaborate frequently during this unit: they collaborate with each other when researching information for their drug video, when learning new digital video technology, and when organizing the drug movie viewing event. Technology is a also a major element of this unit; students use new digital video technology in order to create a professional educational drug movie. Students must use at a minimum digital video software, and audio editing software. Students are also encouraged to use drawing and animation software. Students must use this technology to communicate their information on their drug to a professional audience. Art and design are also elements of this unit; students are asked to create original artwork, video, animation, or music for their video. This unit addresses ethical issues around drug use and abuse. Students read and discuss government policies on illegal drugs. Students also examine how illegal drugs impact individuals, the community, and the world. Students must also demonstrate critical thinking about drugs and ethical issues concerning drugs. Students demonstrate critical thinking in this unit via original research, Socratic seminars, persuasive essays, and persuasive videos.
Thus, the drug unit is in harmony with the educational philosophies of High Tech High. It is interdisciplinary, project-based, has real world application, and allows students and teachers the freedom to personalize the education for each student. The drug unit also addresses the six High Tech High learning goals: collaboration, technology, communication, art and design, community ethics and responsibility, and critical thinking. The in-depth nature of this unit provides students with a unique opportunity to fully grasp what a large impact drugs have on the world.
Products
Students will produce each of the following:
- Storyboard for educational drug movie
- 5 minute educational drug video
- A persuasive essay utilizing statistics from the survey completed by students on an illicit drug
- Lab notebook containing lab write-ups on drug synthesis
- Statistical analysis of drug use and awareness on the school campus
Learning Goals
Students will understand:
- Use of stoichometry for calculating synthesis of products and reactants
- How pH of chemicals change the physical characteristics of drug products
- How drugs affect the nervous and endocrine system
- The statistics calculations required
- The history of the opium wars and the current issues surrounding drugs
Students will be able to:
- Use digital video software to create and edit a digital video
- Use audio software to create an audio component for a digital video
- Research a broad topic using a variety of both primary sources, to cite sources accurately in MLA format
- Obtain a copyright permission for all borrowed sources
- Synthesize aspirin in the lab
- Write a persuasive essay
- Analyze contemporary literature
- Utilize statistics to create information about a population and use the evidence in writings.
Content: Topics Addressed
See Project Overview, above.
Standards Addressed in Drug Movie Project
English-Language Arts:
2.0 Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials)
Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They analyze the organizational patterns, arguments, and positions advanced. The selections in Recommended Literature, Grades Nine Through Twelve (1990) illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition, by grade twelve, students read two million words annually on their own, including a wide variety of classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, and online information. In grades nine and ten, students make substantial progress toward this goal.
Structural Features of Informational Materials
2.1 Analyze the structure and format of functional workplace documents, including the graphics and headers, and explain how authors use the features to achieve their purposes.
2.2 Prepare a bibliography of reference materials for a report using a variety of consumer, workplace, and public documents. Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
2.3 Generate relevant questions about readings on issues that can be researched.
2.5 Extend ideas presented in primary or secondary sources through original analysis, evaluation, and elaboration.
2.6 Demonstrate use of sophisticated learning tools by following technical directions (e.g., those found with graphic calculators and specialized software programs and in access guides to World Wide Web sites on the Internet).
Expository Critique
2.8 Evaluate the credibility of an author's argument or defense of a claim by critiquing the relationship between generalizations and evidence, the comprehensiveness of evidence, and the way in which the author's intent affects the structure and tone of the text (e.g., in professional journals, editorials, political speeches, primary source material).
3.0 Literary Response and Analysis
Students read and respond to historically or culturally significant works of literature that reflect and enhance their studies of history and social science. They conduct in-depth analyses of recurrent patterns and themes. The selections in Recommended Literature, Grades Nine Through Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students.
Structural Features of Literature
3.2 Compare and contrast the presentation of a similar theme or topic across genres to explain how the selection of genre shapes the theme or topic.
Narrative Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
3.5 Compare works that express a universal theme and provide evidence to support the ideas expressed in each work.
Literary Criticism
3.12 Analyze the way in which a work of literature is related to the themes and issues of its historical period. (Historical approach)
Writing
1.0 Writing Strategies
Students write coherent and focused essays that convey a well-defined perspective and tightly reasoned argument. The writing demonstrates students' awareness of the audience and purpose. Students' progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.
Organization and Focus
1.1 Establish a controlling impression or coherent thesis that conveys a clear and distinctive perspective on the subject and maintain a consistent tone and focus throughout the piece of writing.
1.2 Use precise language, action verbs, sensory details, appropriate modifiers, and the active rather than the passive voice.
Research and Technology
1.3 Use clear research questions and suitable research methods (e.g., library, electronic media, personal interview) to elicit and present evidence from primary and secondary sources.
1.4 Develop the main ideas within the body of the composition through supporting evidence (e.g., scenarios, commonly held beliefs, hypotheses, definitions).
1.5 Synthesize information from multiple sources and identify complexities and discrepancies in the information and the different perspectives found in each medium (e.g., almanacs, microfiche, news sources, in-depth field studies, speeches, journals, technical documents).
1.6 Integrate quotations and citations into a written text while maintaining the flow of ideas.
1.7 Use appropriate conventions for documentation in the text, notes, and bibliographies by adhering to those in style manuals (e.g., Modern Language Association Handbook, The Chicago Manual of Style).
1.8 Design and publish documents by using advanced publishing software and graphic programs.
Evaluation and Revision
1.9 Revise writing to improve the logic and coherence of the organization and controlling perspective, the precision of word choice, and the tone by taking into consideration the audience, purpose, and formality of the context.
2.0 Writing Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)
Students combine the rhetorical strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description to produce texts of at least 1,500 words each. Student writing demonstrates a command of standard American English and the research, organizational, and drafting strategies outlined in Writing Standard 1.0. Using the writing strategies of grades nine and ten outlined in Writing Standard 1.0, students:
2.2 Write responses to literature:
a. Demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of the significant ideas of literary works.
b. Support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text or to other works.
c. Demonstrate awareness of the author's use of stylistic devices and an appreciation of the effects created.
d. Identify and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within the text.
2.3 Write expository compositions, including analytical essays and research reports:
a. Marshal evidence in support of a thesis and related claims, including information on all relevant perspectives.
b. Convey information and ideas from primary and secondary sources accurately and coherently.
c. Make distinctions between the relative value and significance of specific data, facts, and ideas.
d. Include visual aids by employing appropriate technology to organize and record information on charts, maps, and graphs.
e. Anticipate and address readers' potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations.
f. Use technical terms and notations accurately.
1.0 Written and Oral English Language Conventions
Students write and speak with a command of Standard English conventions.
Manuscript Form
1.4 Produce legible work that shows accurate spelling and correct use of the conventions of punctuation and capitalization.
1.5 Reflect appropriate manuscript requirements, including title page presentation, pagination, spacing and margins, and integration of source and support material (e.g., in-text citation, use of direct quotations, paraphrasing) with appropriate citations.
Listening and Speaking:
1.0 Listening and Speaking Strategies
Students formulate adroit judgments about oral communication. They deliver focused and coherent presentations of their own that convey clear and distinct perspectives and solid reasoning. They use gestures, tone, and vocabulary tailored to the audience and purpose.
1.1 Formulate judgments about the ideas under discussion and support those judgments with convincing evidence.
2.0 Speaking Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)
Students deliver polished formal and extemporaneous presentations that combine the traditional rhetorical strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description. Student speaking demonstrates a command of standard American English and the organizational and delivery strategies outlined in Listening and Speaking Standard 1.0.
2.5 Deliver persuasive arguments (including evaluation and analysis of problems and solutions and causes and effects):
a. Structure ideas and arguments in a coherent, logical fashion.
b. Use rhetorical devices to support assertions (e.g., by appeal to logic through reasoning; by appeal to emotion or ethical belief; by use of personal anecdote, case study, or analogy).
c. Clarify and defend positions with precise and relevant evidence, including facts, expert opinions, quotations, expressions of commonly accepted beliefs, and logical reasoning.
d. Anticipate and address the listener's concerns and counterarguments.
Mathematics
Probability And Statistics
5.0 Students determine the mean and the standard deviation of a normally distributed random variable.
6.0 Students know the definitions of the mean, median, and mode of a distribution of data and can compute each in particular situations.
7.0 Students compute the variance and the standard deviation of a distribution of data.
8.0 Students organize and describe distributions of data by using a number of different methods, including frequency tables, histograms, standard line and bar graphs, stem-and-leaf displays, scatterplots, and box-and-whisker plots.
History-Social Science
Historical And Social Sciences Analysis Skills
Chronological and Spatial Thinking
1. Students compare the present with the past, evaluating the consequences of past events and decisions and determining the lessons that were learned.
Historical Research, Evidence, and Point of View
1. Students distinguish valid arguments from fallacious arguments in historical interpretations.
4. Students construct and test hypotheses; collect, evaluate, and employ information from multiple primary and secondary sources; and apply it in oral and written presentations.
Historical Interpretation
1. Students show the connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical events and larger social, economic, and political trends and developments.
2. Students recognize the complexity of historical causes and effects, including the limitations on determining cause and effect.
3. Students interpret past events and issues within the context in which an event unfolded rather than solely in terms of present-day norms and values.
4. Students understand the meaning, implication, and impact of historical events and recognize that events could have taken other directions.
World History, Culture, And Geography: The Modern World
10.4 Students analyze patterns of global change in the era of New Imperialism in at least two of the following regions or countries: Africa, Southeast Asia, China, India, Latin America, and the Philippines.
1. Describe the rise of industrial economies and their link to imperialism and colonial-ism (e.g., the role played by national security and strategic advantage; moral issues raised by the search for national hegemony, Social Darwinism, and the missionary impulse; material issues such as land, resources, and technology).
2. Discuss the locations of the colonial rule of such nations as England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and the United States.
3. Explain imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers and the colonized and the varied immediate and long-term responses by the people under colonial rule.
4. Describe the independence struggles of the colonized regions of the world, including the roles of leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen in China, and the roles of ideology and religion.
Science
Biology
Cell Biology:
1. The fundamental life processes of plants and animals depend on a variety of chemical reactions that occur in specialized areas of the organism's cells. As a basis for understanding this concept:
b. Students know enzymes are proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions without altering the reaction equilibrium and the activities of enzymes depend on temperature, ionic conditions, and the pH of the surroundings.
Physiology:
9. As a result of the coordinated structures and functions of organ systems, the internal environment of the human body remains relatively stable (homeostatic) despite changes in the outside environment. As a basis for understanding this concept:
b. Students know how the nervous system mediates communication between different parts of the body and the body's interactions with the environment.
c. Students know how feedback loops in the nervous and endocrine systems regulate conditions in the body.
d. Students know the functions of the nervous system and the role of neurons in transmitting electrochemical impulses.
e. Students know the roles of sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons in sensation, thought, and response.
i. Students know how hormones (including digestive, reproductive, osmoregulatory) provide internal feedback mechanisms for homeostasis at the cellular level and in whole organisms.
Chemistry
Chemical Bonds
2. Biological, chemical, and physical properties of matter result from the ability of atoms to form bonds from electrostatic forces between electrons and protons and between atoms and molecules. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know that atoms combine to form molecules by sharing electrons to form covalent or metallic bonds or by exchanging electrons to form ionic bonds.
b. Students knowchemical bonds between atoms in molecules such as H2, CH4, NH3, H2CCH2, N2, Cl2, and many large biological molecules are covalent.
e. Students knowhow to draw Lewis dot structures.
f. Students knowhow to predict the shape of simple molecules and their polarity from Lewis dot structures.
g. Students knowhow electronegativity and ionization energy relate to bond formation.
Conservation of Matter and Stoichiometry
3. The conservation of atoms in chemical reactions leads to the principle of conservation of matter and the ability to calculate the mass of products and reactants. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students knowhow to describe chemical reactions by writing balanced equations.
b. Students knowthe quantity one mole is set by defining one mole of carbon 12 atoms to have a mass of exactly 12 grams.
c. Students knowone mole equals 6.02 x 1023 particles (atoms or molecules).
d. Students knowhow to determine the molar mass of a molecule from its chemical formula and a table of atomic masses and how to convert the mass of a molecular substance to moles, number of particles, or volume of gas at standard temperature and pressure.
e. Students knowhow to calculate the masses of reactants and products in a chemical reaction from the mass of one of the reactants or products and the relevant atomic masses.
f. Students knowhow to calculate percent yield in a chemical reaction.
g. Students knowhow to identify reactions that involve oxidation and reduction and how to balance oxidation-reduction reactions.
Acids and Bases
5. Acids, bases, and salts are three classes of compounds that form ions in water solutions. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students knowthe observable properties of acids, bases, and salt solutions.
b. Students knowacids are hydrogen-ion-donating and bases are hydrogen-ion-accepting substances.
c. Students knowstrong acids and bases fully dissociate and weak acids and bases partially dissociate.
d. Students knowhow to use the pH scale to characterize acid and base solutions.
e. Students knowthe Arrhenius, Bronsted-Lowry, and Lewis acid-base definitions.
f. Students knowhow to calculate pH from the hydrogen-ion concentration.
g. Students knowbuffers stabilize pH in acid-base reactions.
Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry
10. The bonding characteristics of carbon allow the formation of many different organic molecules of varied sizes, shapes, and chemical properties and provide the biochemical basis of life. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know the bonding characteristics of carbon that result in the formation of a large variety of structures ranging from simple hydrocarbons to complex polymers and biological molecules.
e. Students know how to identify the functional groups that form the basis of alcohols, ketones, ethers, amines, esters, aldehydes, and organic acids.
Investigation And Experimentation
Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other four strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:
a. Select and use appropriate tools and technology (such as computer-linked probes, spreadsheets, and graphing calculators) to perform tests, collect data, analyze relationships, and display data.
b. Identify and communicate sources of unavoidable experimental error.
c. Identify possible reasons for inconsistent results, such as sources of error or uncontrolled conditions.
d. Formulate explanations by using logic and evidence.
j. Recognize the issues of statistical variability and the need for controlled tests.
l. Analyze situations and solve problems that require combining and applying concepts from more than one area of science.
m. Investigate a science-based societal issue by researching the literature, analyzing data, and communicating the findings. Examples of issues include irradiation of food, cloning of animals by somatic cell nuclear transfer, choice of energy sources, and land and water use decisions in California.