By Judith Johnson

Starfish has been developed in partnership with the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) and supported by the Wellcome Trust (WT) and Central YMCA.

Lessons 1 to 5 have been developed by Centre of the Cell on behalf of the UKCRC. Centre of the Cell is a science education centre, an online resource and an outreach project aimed at schools, young people and families.

The Materials are designed to complement the science curriculum for 11–16 year olds (key stages 3 and 4), but can be used as revision or extension activities with other key stages. They also address some of the key themes in other curricula including citizenship, history, biology and environmental studies.

How to download the Resources.

You can download each file individually by selecting the relevant links for each file. You will need a version of Acrobat Reader in order to read and print the files. If you don't have it on your machine, download a free copy from the Adobe Acrobat web site

Preparatory Lessons
Suggested preparatory lessons to be used to prepare students prior to the performance.
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Lesson 1 - Clinical Research

In these activities, pupils learn about how new medicines are developed - from the initial idea, through the science that turns them into treatments, to the clinical research that tests whether they are safe and effective.

Curriculum Links
KS4: Science
AS/A Level: Applied Science, Human Biology
SQA Access, Intermediate and Higher: Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry

Activities
1. Detecting Cancer
2. How are medicines developed and tested?

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Lesson 2 - Disease Detection & Diagnosis

These activities teach pupils to think about how doctors and other staff diagnose illnesses and how new diagnostic tests are developed. Pupils also consider when screening programmes for diseases are appropriate.

How do doctors diagnose disease? First, they take note of a patient's symptoms. Symptoms are physical signs produced by a disease, but they are not the cause of that disease. If you have a fever, this is your body's response to an infection. The infection causes your immune system to respond by raising the body's temperature, and the fever is the symptom of the infection.

Curriculum Links
KS3 Science
KS3 History
KS3 Citizenship
SQA National Guidelines (5-14) Environmental Studies

Activities
1. Diagnosis activity
2. How Clinical Research can lead to improvements in Diagnostic Tests
3. Deciding when to use Screening Programmes

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Lesson 3 - New Vaccines

These activities introduce the concept of vaccination and why it only protects the population if most people are vaccinated. They show how early vaccination was tested and discuss the role of informed consent in Clinical Research. Pupils learn about the process of developing a new vaccine.

Curriculum Links
KS3 Science
KS3 Citizenship
KS3 History
KS4 Science
KS4 Citizenship
AS/A2 Level Chemistry
AS/A2 Level Biology
SQA (5-14): Environmental Studies
SQA Access, Intermediate and
Higher: Biology, Biotechnology

Activities
1. Creating Herd Immunity
2. Smallpox Vaccination and Informed Consent
3. Developing a New Vaccine

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Lesson 4 - Double Blind Trials

These activities demonstrate how double blind trials are run, explaining what a placebo is and how the placebo effect works, how bias is removed as far as possible and how participants and trial medicines are randomised.

Curriculum Links
KS3: Science
KS4: Biology
SQA Access, Intermediate and Higher: Biology

Activities
1. Placebo Effect
2. Observer Bias
3. Double Blind Trial

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Lesson 5 - Risk Factors of Disease

These activities introduce the idea that there are certain factors, called risk factors, which can increase a person's likelihood of developing a disease. Pupils learn how scientists use research to determine what the risk factors are for various diseases.

Curriculum Links
KS3 Science
KS4 Science
SQA 5-14 Standard Environmental Studies
SQA Access, Intermediate and Higher: Biology and Biology Investigation

Activities
1. Can you identify patients' risk of disease?
2. Find the risk factors of disease
3. How do scientists determine what is a risk factor?

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	For further information about this project, email our Tour Producer David Jackson