How Can Genetic Variation Lead to a Milk Allergy?

Food Allergies Unit

How Can Genetic Variation Lead to a Milk Allergy?

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Sensemaking is actively trying to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering). Students do science and engineering through the science and engineering practices. Engaging in these practices necessitates that students be part of a learning community to be able to share ideas, evaluate competing ideas, give and receive critique, and reach consensus. Whether this community of learners is made up of classmates or family members, students and adults build and refine science and engineering knowledge together.

Lesson Snapshot

High school students, as scientists, investigate data from a study about food allergies to begin to answer the following driving question: How can genetic variation lead to a milk allergy? Students use information from their intolerance models, articles, and other work from previous lessons to develop a model that offers a possible explanation for how variation in the FAM117A gene could lead to a milk allergy. From there, students return to unanswered questions from their Driving Question Board and begin to investigate treatments for food allergies.

This is Lesson 6 in the Food Allergies Unit.

Click the Download PDF button above for the complete Lesson Plan.

Materials

Student Materials

Per Student

Milk Allergies Data handout

Per Small Group (2 to 4 students)

National Institutes of Health (NIH): Treatment for Living With Food Allergy
VW News: How Scientists Are Engineering Allergy-Free Wheat and Peanuts
Stanford: Using CRISPR Technology for Allergy and Asthma
FARE: Food Allergy Research: Tackling a Complex Problem From Many Angles

Teacher Materials

Food Allergy Storyline Unit

This lesson is one of seven lessons in the Food Allergy Storyline Unit. Storylines start with an anchoring phenomenon that raises questions or introduces a problem. Each step in a storyline unit is then driven by students’ questions that arise from the phenomenon.

In this case, the anchoring phenomenon is something familiar yet still mysterious to this generation of students - bans on certain foods in their cafeterias and classrooms. Students will probably be able to connect the bans to food allergies but might not be able to explain why a person has food allergies. Students to consider what they do and don't know about food allergies and what they want to find out. This gives them a reason for investigating the biological mechanism behind food allergies and intolerances. In doing so, they will make sense of Disciplinary Core Ideas related to genetics and genomics. The food allergy storyline allows students to develop science ideas related to LS1.A Structure and Function and LS3.A Inheritance of Traits.