WHO ‘S AFRAID OF BIOTERRORISM ?
or
WHO’S
AFRAID OF THE BIG, BAD BUG?
Designed by
Helen Kellert
The Board of Education in your town has a social problem. It is concerned that local schoolchildren may have misconceptions about the nature of and realistic measures to be taken against bioterrorism.
To help solve this problem, and to correct the lack of a school bioterrorist policy, The Board needs students of your age to reach out and communicate to other students in your own and in other schools. The Board is asking you to help establish a set of protocols, guidelines and fictional or journalistic materials.These will be used to make students aware of the nature of bioterrorism warfare, of the ways pathogens and microbes are created, cultured and used and what schools should be doing to handle a future bioterrorism attack.
You and your team of four other students have been called in
by the Board to help with this problem.
You will be researching existing evidence
of bioterrorism, determining bioterrorism ’s causes and investigating existing
and possible policies in
You will be
a) educating children in schools about biological agents
b) alerting students to the real dangers posed by biological attacks
c) guiding students on how to read, sift through and evaluate the conflicting or ambiguous reports and journalism on the topic
d) recommending measures that schools could adopt to prevent both bioterrorism and panic.
e) informing students of realistic preventative and medical steps to be taken
f) helping children distinguish between reasonable caution and irrational fears in their responses to biological threats
g) creating a fictional or dramatic work (see below * )
OR
writing a recommendation for schools on how to make the school environment safe (see below**)
* Your creative product to be distributed to or performed for children must highlight information about and responses to all aspects of biological threat. As a model of a writer using science to write a work of fiction, the Board needs you to read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Chrichton and to advise it on how to use or adapt this in the schools. To explore this novel, your team must answer any TWENTY questions from The Andromeda Strain list following this section.
Your creative product can be in the form of written pamphlets, newsletters, letters to schoolchildren, skits, scenarios, plays, dialogues, interviews, pages from a novel, a fairy tale, short stories, movie screenplays, comedy routines, songs, a legal brief, courtroom scene, debate etc. You may use one or several of these suggestions or supply your own. As Michael Crichton wrote his novel based on a scientific possibility, so will your creative work use the research you gather in exploring a) through f) above. Your group creative work must be FIVE typewritten pages.
There are two other requirements here.
The first is that the work must speak directly or indirectly to realistic responses as opposed to exaggerated, inappropriate responses to biological threats. You are writing Science Fiction, not Science Fantasy. The fictional characters or situations you describe or evoke must be based on the research you do on websites, newspapers, books etc. Your work should allow your student viewers or readers to arrive at their own conclusions about appropriate reactions. Remember, satire and laughter are great ways to highlight ridiculous or incorrect or crazy behavior!
The second is that at least TWENTY facts or pieces of information from your research must make an appearance in your creative work. Highlight and number these in your work.
** If your group decides to to write a five - page { typed, DOUBLE - SPACED} proposal, you are required to supply recommendations and guidelines for individual schools to adopt in order to handle educational, medical and law enforcement measures issues necessary. Your proposal should analyze how a school should interface with hospitals, world medical experts, the National Institute of Health (NIH ), pharmaceutical companies, national and international law enforcement agencies, from local police Precincts to the FBI. . Use The Andromeda Strain to focus on measures to safeguard the correct handling of dangerous biochemical organisms. You may choose to study all the mistakes that occurred in the novel and describe in your work the various scientific and police precautions that a school would need to know about or enforce.
At least TWENTY facts or pieces of information from your research must make an appearance in your proposal. Highlight and number these in your work.
Here ‘s the work
!
1.
Read The Andromeda Strain .
2.
As a group, decide which twenty questions you wish to answer and which
vocabulary words each member will look up.
Assign a date when all team members will bring in
vocabulary definitions.
Assign a date by which team members bring in four
different vocabulary quizzes for other team members. Each member designs quizzes on his/her
vocabulary words.
Assign a date when the group will have a Vocabulary
Quiz Day. On that day, all members will take quizzes. Each member will take
home his /her quizzes to grade at home.
Arrange to have one member keep all graded quizzes.
Divide the Andromeda
Strain questions so that each member answers four questions.
2. Find twenty websites (four per team member) from the long list below that will help you supply the answers to the topics in the EVALUATION, below. Divide work so that all team members share doing this research.
3. Create a work
of fiction, fantasy, extract from a diary. T.V show etc. etc.
OR
Write a
proposal as described above.
The Andromeda
Strain: Answer 20
Questions from the following.
The following words appear in
this novel
You are required to look up
and KNOW
all vocabulary
words listed on these handouts.
(*Reading the pages provided
next to many of them just might provide all your definitions and explanations.) WRITE a sentence for 25 new words
( 25 Sentences Total for the group)
exogenous (p 80)
electrocardiogram(p99)
to cauterize (p 80)
electrocephalogram (p 100)
prophylactic (p 86)
a quonset hut (p89)
symptomatology (p86)
albumen (p 99)
pharmacology (p86)
systemic (p 100)
febrile and afebrile (p85)
innocuous (p 108)
deleterious (p 37)
prodigious (p 38)
velocity
vector
*exotoxin (p 113-4)
*coagulase (p 113-4)
*hemolysis (p 113-4)
*streptokinase (p 113-4)
assays (p 144)
to succumb (p167)
cumbersome(ly) (p 147)
to discard (p167)
hypoglycemic (p 147)
coagulation
requisition (p149)
pathological (p169)
agar (p 157)
*anemic (p 171)
ubiquitous (p 161)
*prothrombin (p 172)
*heparin (p 167)
thromboplatin (p 180)
doubletalk (provide also
the example of doubletalk on p187)
*polymer (p 190)
rebuttal (p 195)
1) p35-36.
Crichton presents a scientific paper by one of his characters:
a) Discuss the effectiveness of the
title.
b) Provide a summary of
c)
Analyze the use of charts
d) Note the alternating
sequences in the paper. Concise alternates with verbose, simple alternates with
abstract, long alternates with short
sections. What do you think of this use
of opposing styles?
2) p 37.
Stone’s achievements.
Where could we go to verify,
expand our background and knowledge of these bacteriological advancements?
Describe in detail a) the
internet source you would embark on for this; and b) your findings – (for this,
use the summary in appendix I of the novel)
3)
p 57-61. How effective is Crichton’s use
of text (p57) and maps (p58-60) to describe and amplify the velocity and vector
issues of flying into
4)
Why does Crichton put responsibility of nuclear weapons to cauterize deadly
exogenous organisms into political, not scientific, hands? (p 80-82)
5) Describe three other current issues in modern
science and modern life where a political decisions has been or will have to be
made based on scientific issues, facts, advancements, crises?
6) What are the implications or consequences of such
decisions? Explore each one.
7)
How does the information on the bottom of p90 – top of p91 relate to your
analysis of political and scientific decision-making? Might your scenario have to include a
bypassing of the political process? -
Explain.
8) In
the Acknowledgements (p XI ):
a) What
is Crichton’s reason for telling a fictional story of a scientific crisis?
b) How
relevant do you think this is to life in
9) Why does Crichton include in the opening
“actual”(although fictional) pages and text of a file (p84) which he himself
calls “bad”, unreadable, hard to understand due to bureaucratic jargon and
references?
10) From your work on successful scientific writing,
explain whether the information on p85-86 (the five stages of primary
parameters) meets the criteria for clear, concise scientific writing. Analyze 3 examples, 3 phrases, or 3 sentences
of this writing, examining how each is or is not a sample of effective
scientific writing.
11) In the file on the Odd Man Hypothesis (p87), how
does Crichton’s trick of leaving out a page affect suspense and tension for the
reader as well as provide twists and interests for the plot? - Explain.
12) p 97-98.
What is the effect in the story of the recitation of the long list of
dangerous bacterial organisms?
13) Evaluate Crichton’s use of graphs and pictorials
on page 99. Would it have been better or
not to use written text? - Explain.
14) p 130. In
the light of what you’ve learned about aspects of a scientific paper, analyze
Crichton’s fictional Summary and Results of the Odd Man Hypothesis. Are they complete and concise? Explain.
Could this experiment be repeated? - Why/Why not?
15)
p 97-98. What is the effect in the story
of the recitation of the long list of dangerous bacterial organisms?
16) Evaluate Crichton’s use
of graphs and pictorials on page 99.
Would it have been better or not to use written text? - Explain.
17) p130. In the light of what you’ve learned about
aspects of a scientific paper, analyze Crichton’s fictional Summary and Results
of the Odd Man Hypothesis. Are they
complete and concise?
Explain. Could this experiment be
repeated? - Why/Why not?
18) How does the Analysis
(p105 – paragraph beginning “The results......”) provide or not provide a
thorough examination of the experiment, the implications of the experiment, and
recommendations following the experiment?
19) p108.
In the middle of the novel, Crichton summarizes the book’s previous
action and findings in one sentence: “They reviewed the findings of rapid
deaths, the bizarre suicides, the clotted arteries, and the lack of
bleeding.” Is this sentence the
equivalent of the material of an Abstract (the beginning of a scientific paper)
or to the Results(the middle of a paper), or to the Discussions(the end of a
paper)? - Explain.
20) Crichton implies the posing of the
scientific problem: ”How does the Scoop bacteria work to destroy human tissue and
metabolism” by having his character
21) Bottom p109 – Top
110. Crichton states a problem and then
provides Method and Methodology (p110-114).
a) Restate the problem in the form of a title for a science
paper and
b) Provide four methods of the procedure
c)
As you know, an ESSENTIAL trait of good scientific papers is that methods
described can be REPEATED by other
scientists. Could Crichton’s
decontamination methods be REPEATED? -
Explain.
d) Could Koop’s decontamination methods for meteorites be
repeated exactly? (explain what Crichton includes AND deletes here. (p124)
e) Why is the worldwide use of the black
22) p115. Explain how Leavitt’s thinking about the
history of a cure for cholera leads him to a hypothesis of “cure the symptoms,
cure the disease.” (You must explain what the cure for cholera is and why it is
effective.)
23) What is your opinion of
Leavitt’s thinking about complex life (p115) and his conclusion about the
possible size of life on other planets (p116)?
Is this logical, valid thinking?
Do you accept this hypothesis? -
Explain why/why not?
24) Draw a cartoon
illustrating Chalmer’s example of microscopic extra terrestial life (p116).
(Yes, stick figures are just fine. You
will not be assessed on drawing ability.
If you are talented in drawing, more power to you. - I look forward to all your sketches.)
25) What are the similarities
and differences between a bacterium on earth and Crichton’s fictional,
extra-terrestrial bacteria? (p124)
26) How does Crichton explain
the way a mutated bacterium could move back on
earth? (p 27)
27) Why are the results of
altered reproductive rate of bacteria in space and the fact that the results
are ignored significant for this story? (Note the increased reproductive rate.)
28) When Leavitt postulates
that debris in space might have caused a collision with the Scoop satellite,
other scientists discount this as a far-fetched possibility. How is Leavitt’s kind of imagination both “a
strength and a defect” for scientists? (Bottom p137)
29) How can a pig be one of
our best friends? (p 139)
For Extra Credit Bonus: Create a really good,
subtle, witty, hearty joke about this pig-human connection.
30) What are growth media? (p
157) Name five.
31) Write out Burton’s
experiment (top of p160) in the form of a Title, a 1 – 2 sentence Abstract,
a 1 – 2 sentence Introduction (yes, provide Results). Results (1 – 2 sentence) and Discussion (same
length).
32) What are the results of
33) The evolutionary principle of biology
whereby humankind and bacteria have adapted to one another results in increased
reproductive potential for humans. How?
(bottom p161)
34) What lessons could any
scientist learn from
35) Write up
36) Why do individuals
addicted to methadol have shortness of breath as a symptom? Bottom 180.
37) Name the 2 substances the
old man was treating himself with. (p 180)
· Chrichton,
Michael : The Andromeda Strain
· Use these Public Policy websites to gather information and write your work using the
SIX STEP Public Policy
Analyst Program:
Public Policy Analyst:
Student educational resources:
www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/related.html
Tutorials on using computer technology:
www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/tutorials.html
Websites for
Bioterrorism WebQuest
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/national/18pox.html?searchpv=past7days
http://www.state.in.us/isdh/healthinfo/bioterrorism.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-anthrax-internet.html?searchpv=aponline
www.kitchendoctor.com/bioterrorism.html
www.nbc-med.org/sitecontent/medref/onlineref/govdocs/biowarfare/index.html
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/fugitives.html
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/cbr_handbook/cbrbook.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/dailynews/wtc_bioweapons.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/dailynews/terror_profiles_011010.fbk.html
http://www.csis.org/hill/ts01905cilluffo.html
http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/groups2.html
http://www.hhs.gov/hottopics/healing/biological.html
http://www.acponline.org/bioterro/
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/zilin.htm
http://www.nextstep.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/newmedianews/archive/2000/11/17/tsbioterrorism.dtl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/attacked/A41225-2001Sep16.html
www.msnbc.com/news/635920.asp?cp1=1
http://nandotimes.com/dwb_data/v-include/?getstatic=/nt/topics/anthrax.html
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/bioterrorism/vitalmoments.jsp
http://www.survival-mindset.com/new_info.htm
www.stimson.org/cwc/terror.hlm
www.bt/cdc/gov/DocmentsApp/FactsAbout/FactsAbout.asp
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/qa.htm
http://www.fda.gov/cber/cntrbio/contribio.htm
http://www.hlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_4785.html
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no6/jernigan.htm
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/6667.html
http://www.avma.org/press/pibioterrorism01.asp
http://www/asm.org/pasrc/bioterrorismthreat.htm
http://www.stimson.org/cwc/terror.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/national/18pox.html?searchpv=past7days
http://www.state.in.us/isdh/healthinfo/bioterrorism.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-anthrax-internet.html?searchpv=aponline
www.kitchendoctor.com/bioterrorism.html
www.nbc-med.org/sitecontent/medref/onlineref/govdocs/biowarfare/index.html
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/fugitives.html
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/cbr_handbook/cbrbook.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/dailynews/wtc_bioweapons.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/dailynews/terror_profiles_011010.fbk.html
http://www.csis.org/hill/ts01905cilluffo.html
http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/groups2.html
www.nytimes.com/reuters/bussiness/bussiness-economy.html?searchpv=reuters
www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-anthrax.html?searchpv=reuters
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1561000/1561360.stm
http://www.bio.psu.edu/people/faculty/whittam/research/bw.html
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/documentsapp/anthrax/11072001/clinician.asp
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/newsroom/releases/ebolavacc.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_4505.html
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=000000089490727&fmt=3&deli=1&mtd=1&idx=10&sid=2&rqt=309
www.bt.cdc.gov/documentsapp/factsabout/factsabout.asp
www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/smallpoxconsensus.pdt
http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761577286
www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/brucellosis/brucellosis.asp
www.cdc.gov/health/disease.htm
www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/smallpoxonsenus.pdf
www.hopkins-biodefense.org/pages/agents/agent.htm
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v286n20/ffull/jed10079.html
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5010al.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2001/tech/internet/11/19/anthrax.internet.ap/index.html
www.dhfs.state.wi.us/dph-bcd/bioterrorism
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publication/bioterrorism.htm
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v286n20/ffull/jed10079.html
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guides/rfa-files/rfa-a1-00.004.html
http://www.niaid.gov/factsheets/btrsch.htm
www.hopkins-biodefense.org/index/html
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/biologicalandchemicalweapons.html
www.bt.cdc.gov/documentsapp/factsabout.asp
www.hlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_4566.html
www.medlineplus.nlm.gov/gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_4517.html
www.medlineplus.nlm.gov/gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_4406.html
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/bioterrorism.html
http://ohp.nasa.gov/alerts/anthrax.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2001/health/11/21/smallpox.treatment.ap/index.html
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/bioterrorism.htm
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bioterror/
www.news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid-1561000/1561360.slm
www.hhs.gov/hottopics/healing/biological.html
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/documentsapp/anthrax/11072001/clinician.asp
http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=mh00018
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/documentsapp/facts/about/factsabout.asp
Your five page proposal or play, short story, or whatever format you have chosen, is the product you will hand in. You will be judged on
a) how well you have educated your audience on the following:
- The types and strains of micro – organisms likely to be deployed in biostrategy
- How each micro-organism attacks its human target
- Testing and lab experimentation of pathogens
- Known use of bio tactics against populations
- Current status of production of pathogens in foreign countries
- Techniques of dissemination of pathogens
- Known antidotes and antibiotic measures successful against infection by planted pathogens
- Availability of and positions for and against vaccine and vaccination techniques as preventative measures
- How schools can create safe and feasible methods to protect its students.
Remember to include at least TWENTY facts or pieces of information from your research in your creative work. Highlight and number these in your work.
http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/tutorials.html
b) how you have creatively and imaginatively used all the information gathered in your research to put together a work that will illustrate what we know about bioterrorism and how we can prevent or react to a bioterrorist attack in the best way possible.
c) how thoroughly you have looked up the Vocabulary words, writing one sentence for each of any twenty words .
Submit all
definitions and the 25 sentences.
The
written work you hand in will contain at least twenty references to information found on the
websites suggested or on other websites.
Your work must be able to be used by schools to distribute to children
or to plan school policy. Whether a
creative piece or a policy proposal, the work should educate children
about biochemical micro-organisms and
how individual children or their school can best react. You could be instrumental in creating a sane , intelligent and practical policy to a
reality of the 21st Century.
|
“There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” |
|
Beat Bioterrorism by being Boldly, Bravely, Brilliantly Informed! |