Valuable Vaccines - A Myth-busting Workshop!
This workshop will teach students how vaccines work and the importance of vaccines to human public health.
What You Need
Activity 1: Memory Mindbuster
- Blank paper (1)
- Writing utensil (1)
Activity 2: How Vaccines Work
- How Vaccines Work - Worksheet (1) or blank paper (1)
- Coloured markers or pencil crayons (4)
Activity 3: Herd Immunity
- Herd Immunity - Worksheet (1) or blank paper (2)
- Pencil or pen (1)
- Coloured markers or pencil crayons (15)
Guide:
Presentation:
Safety Notes
Ensure you are familiar with Let's Talk Science's precautions with respect to safe virtual outreach to youth.
What To Do
Introduction
- Go though the PowerPoint presentation slides to introduce the topic of vaccines, why they are important and why it is important to learn about vaccines.
Activity 1 - Memory Mindbuster
- Watch a slideshow of 10 different animals [slide 12]. Try to remember all of the animals that you saw without writing them down!
- What animals did you see?
- Discuss immune memory.
- Watch the slideshow of pathogens [slide 16]. Try to remember all of the pathogens that you saw without writing them down!
- Do you remember seeing the prion, parasite, virus, fungi and bacteria pathogens?
Activity 2 - How Vaccines Work
- In this activity, you will model the four different ways that your immune system builds memory:
- To model a natural infection in your body, imagine you are infected by a pathogen that look like the image on slide 35.
- Draw a model antibody that will help you identify the pathogen.
- Antibodies fit into distinct parts of the pathogen like a key fits into a lock.
- Your pathogen can fit any distinctive part of the pathogen model.
- Repeat process for weakened pathogen [slide 38] and part of a pathogen [slide 40].
- For genetic material, draw a straight line down the middle of the box, then draw a line anywhere else in the box, but make sure it touches the first line that you drew.
- Then, make an antibody model that fits the shape you drew inside the box.
Activity 3 - Herd Immunity
Part 1 - To represent 70% herd immunity:
- Colour in 10 random squares scattered around on your grid. These squares represent 10 people who chose not to get vaccinated because they are unsure how vaccines work.
- Colour in 5 random squares along the edqes of the grid in a different colour. These people live far from the town's centre and are unable to access vaccine centres.
- Colour in 5 random squares scattered randomly around in another colour. These people cannot easily get time off work to get vaccinated.
- Colour in 5 random squares scattered randomly around in a another colour. These poeple are pregnant so they cannot get vaccinated.
- Mark 5 X's in random squares scattered randomly arouns. These people are immunocompromised and cannot get vaccinated.
- Make a fist with your hand. Close your eyes and randomly place your fist somewhere on the paper. Your fist represents someone infected coming into the community.
- Leave your fist on the paper and trace around it.
- Remove your fist from the paper and examine.
- How many coloured boxes is your fist touching? Is your fist touching any X's?
Part 2: Choose what % of herd immunity to represent:
- Choose to colour in 5-25 boxes randomly scattered around your second grid.
- Repeat steps 6-8 of the last activity.
- How many boxes did you chose to colour in?
- How many coloured boxes is your fist touching?
Discovery
Activity 1 - Memory Mindbuster
The memory activity had you memorize animals that we were shown and then recall whether or not you’ve seen a certain animal before. This phenomenon is very similar to what your immune memory does.
When your immune system comes in contact with a pathogen, it uses its memory cells to make a memory of that pathogen. This process can take around 4 to 7 days. Each memory cell can remember one pathogen. This is done so that in the future, if your immune system comes in contact with a pathogen that it has seen before, it can react faster since it has a memory of it! Vaccines allow your immune system to be exposed to a harmless amount of a pathogen to make a memory of it.
The immune system doesn’t have to remember the viruses by what they look like. The immune system actually makes antibodies to each pathogen. An antibody is a small protein that fits into the pathogen like a lock in a key to remember the pathogen.
Activity 2: How Vaccines Work
Vaccines work by developing immune memory either utilizing a weakened pathogen, a part of a pathogen or genetic material.
- A weakened pathogen may be administered by a vaccine. This will expose your body to the pathogen in a way that will not make you sick, but teach your body to respond by making antibodies.
- A part of the pathogen may be administered by a vaccine. This will not make you sick, but it will expose your body to enough of the pathogen so that you can create antibodies.
- Genetic material may be administered by a vaccine. This material gives your body instructions to make small parts of the pathogen. The small parts of the pathogen do not make you sick, but they help you to build immune memory.
Activity 3: Herd Immunity
Herd Immunity is when a large part of the community can no longer be infected or spread a disease.
The goal of a vaccine is to make the recipient immune to the disease. This means the person can’t get infected with the disease and are very unlikely to infect others.
In this activity, since you had a greater % herd immunity in your second grid, more people were likely infected in our first grid when there was 70% herd immunity. This is because less people were immune to the disease. If less people are immune to the disease and more people are infected then the disease will spread much more quickly in the 70% herd immunity scenario.
Vaccines are an incredible scientific discovery that has helped humans overcome many diseases. Without vaccines, diseases like polio, tetanus and hepatitis would have wiped out the human population.
Getting a vaccine can be very important to help protect those that are unable to receive or easily access the vaccine! Even if you are healthy, that does not mean everyone around you is health and would be affected by a disease the same way
These are a few extension activities the students can continue to work on or try out after the Let’s Talk Science workshop.
- If you want to learn more about vaccines, visit a trusted source, such as a hospital or university, Government of Canada, or the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Share your knowledge with your community with an adult’s permission.
- Get an understanding of the views that your community has surrounding vaccines.
- Make a list of what you learned from the workshop.
- From this list, determine what you want to share with your community.
- Think about who can help you with this project.
- Make a list of what materials you might need and how much time you might need.
- Create a plan on how you share this information. Will you make a presentation? Will you share this information via word of mouth?
- Execute your plan!
What's Happening?
Activity 1 - Memory Mindbuster
The memory activity had you memorize animals that we were shown and then recall whether or not you’ve seen a certain animal before. This phenomenon is very similar to what your immune memory does.
When your immune system comes in contact with a pathogen, it uses its memory cells to make a memory of that pathogen. This process can take around 4 to 7 days. Each memory cell can remember one pathogen. This is done so that in the future, if your immune system comes in contact with a pathogen that it has seen before, it can react faster since it has a memory of it! Vaccines allow your immune system to be exposed to a harmless amount of a pathogen to make a memory of it.
The immune system doesn’t have to remember the viruses by what they look like. The immune system actually makes antibodies to each pathogen. An antibody is a small protein that fits into the pathogen like a lock in a key to remember the pathogen.
Activity 2: How Vaccines Work
Vaccines work by developing immune memory either utilizing a weakened pathogen, a part of a pathogen or genetic material.
- A weakened pathogen may be administered by a vaccine. This will expose your body to the pathogen in a way that will not make you sick, but teach your body to respond by making antibodies.
- A part of the pathogen may be administered by a vaccine. This will not make you sick, but it will expose your body to enough of the pathogen so that you can create antibodies.
- Genetic material may be administered by a vaccine. This material gives your body instructions to make small parts of the pathogen. The small parts of the pathogen do not make you sick, but they help you to build immune memory.
Activity 3: Herd Immunity
Herd Immunity is when a large part of the community can no longer be infected or spread a disease.
The goal of a vaccine is to make the recipient immune to the disease. This means the person can’t get infected with the disease and are very unlikely to infect others.
In this activity, since you had a greater % herd immunity in your second grid, more people were likely infected in our first grid when there was 70% herd immunity. This is because less people were immune to the disease. If less people are immune to the disease and more people are infected then the disease will spread much more quickly in the 70% herd immunity scenario.
Why Does it Matter?
Vaccines are an incredible scientific discovery that has helped humans overcome many diseases. Without vaccines, diseases like polio, tetanus and hepatitis would have wiped out the human population.
Getting a vaccine can be very important to help protect those that are unable to receive or easily access the vaccine! Even if you are healthy, that does not mean everyone around you is health and would be affected by a disease the same way
Investigate Further
These are a few extension activities the students can continue to work on or try out after the Let’s Talk Science workshop.
- If you want to learn more about vaccines, visit a trusted source, such as a hospital or university, Government of Canada, or the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Share your knowledge with your community with an adult’s permission.
- Get an understanding of the views that your community has surrounding vaccines.
- Make a list of what you learned from the workshop.
- From this list, determine what you want to share with your community.
- Think about who can help you with this project.
- Make a list of what materials you might need and how much time you might need.
- Create a plan on how you share this information. Will you make a presentation? Will you share this information via word of mouth?
- Execute your plan!