Part of Lesson Plan: Introduction to the Immune System- Jodi Evans

Activity Overview / Details

For this lesson, I have two containers of "lotion". One container is really lotion, the other is "glo-germ" lotion (you can buy it from Ward's or any other biological catalog). When the students arrive I offer them lotion, some from each container. They take their seats and I then turn off the lights and walk around the room with a UV light (also found from a biological catalog) to see if anyone has "germs" on their hands. The students who's hands glow blue are the ones that have "germs" on them. I ask those students to wash their hands in the back of the room. When they come back, I check their hands again with light. Usually, the students will still glow, because they haven't done a good job of washing their hands. I ask them to wash their hands again, this time the students normally spend a great amount of care scrubbing their hands thoroughly because they are really embarrassed that their hands are still glowing. This gets the whole class involved and talking about how most people don't do a thorough job of washing their hands and how this can lead to the spreading of disease.