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Responsive Curriculums

prerna_srigyan
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  • The process of designing curriculum is quite useful as it details how different activities correspond to learning goals in science, mathematics, and technology. Fig. 3 describes the steps: selecting content through content specialists in the POAC team, making a curriculum outline, individual meetings with content specialists, and making the lesson plans. I really like the activities they designed, such as comparing different mask materials and how they protected against differently-sized viruses. They were also given time to research career pathways and present on epidemiology careers, a step that invites students to imagine career pathways. 

  • I realize the scope and audience of this paper is different, but I am so curious about how the Imhotep Academy created a setting that encouraged underrepresented students to participate and speak up, given that they cite evidence of how difficult that can be. How did they choose participants? 

  • Having read Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed recently, I am thinking about his approach to curriculum design that is based on a feedback loop between would-be learners and would-be educators. The roles of learners and educators aren’t fixed. Content development is not done beforehand just by content specialists but in an iterative process with multiple feedback loops. Since very few research teams have the time or the resources to deploy Freire’s rigorous approach, I am not surprised that most curriculum development does not follow the route. And educators are working with former experiences anyway. So I am curious about how the authors’ previous experiences shaped their approach to curriculum design?

  • A context for this paper is the controversy on the proposed revisions to the California math curriculum that conservative media outlets argue “waters down” calculus–a cherry topping on the college admissions cake–to privilege data science in middle-school grades. Education researchers contend that apart from physics and engineering majors, not many colleges actually require calculus for admissions (many private institutions do), and that the relevance of advanced calculus for college preparation is overrated. 

  • National Commission on Excellence in Education ‘s 1983 report Nation At Risk: the need for a new STEM workforce specializing in computer science and technology 

  • National Council on Mathematics 2000 guidelines for preparing American students for college in Common Core Mathematics 

  • Stuck in the Shallow End: Virtual segregation; Inequality in learning computer science in American schools focusing on Black students 

Louisiana Tumor Registry Research & Critiques

tschuetz
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Lawsuit led by River Region Crime Commission (RRCC) to retrieve LTR information

http://www.la-fcca.org/Opinions/PUB2004/2004-04/2003CA0079.Apr2004.Pub.12.pdf 

Article by Barbara Allen (2005). The problem with epidemiology data in assessing environmental health impacts of toxic sites

https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/EEH05/EEH05048FU.pdf 

“The registry focuses on cancer incidence, which can be caused by a number of factors, instead of the risk faced by people exposed to emissions from industrial operations. In Terrell's view, that has allowed companies and by the state Department of Environmental Quality to misconstrue its significance.” (Mitchell 2021)

“While scientists will argue that the one-year reporting standard, as set by the state statute, is arbitrary, a five-year reporting timetable is equally arbitrary and less sensitive to changing health patterns. More problematic, however, were the eight large geographic regions. Each region consisted of as many as twelve parishes (a parish is a county in Louisiana) and in the case of the regions that include the parishes of the chemical corridor, industrial parishes are “diluted” by non-industrial parishes, making the determination of elevated cancer rates near chemical plants impossible to decide. The LTR also tends to downplay the rarer cancers, both adult and pediatric, saying the “rates tend to fluctuate because of small numbers...[and] are less reliable and should be cautiously interpreted” [4]. This infuriates the residents and researchers as these rare cancers are of major concern as they may be linked to chemical exposure.”

Response to new health study (March 2021) 

https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/press/2021/3/22/new-public-health-study-does-little-to-allay-fears-in-cancer-alley 

 http://denka-pe.com/about-us/denkaunhr/ 

Tumor Registry Data Source

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“The Louisiana Tumor Registry (LTR) collects information from the entire state on the incidence of cancer. This information includes the types of cancer (morphology, grade, and behavior), anatomic location, extent of cancer at the time of diagnosis (stage), treatment, and outcomes (survival and mortality).”

 “[A]ny health care facility or provider diagnosing or treating cancer patients shall report each case of cancer to the registry. It also protects health care facilities and providers that disclose confidential data in good faith to the LTR from damages arising from such disclosures.”, see cancer reporting.

Toxic Release Inventory Mission

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Louisiana State University (LSU) School of Public Health

Mission: “To collect and report complete, high-quality, and timely population-based cancer data in Louisiana to support cancer research, control, and prevention.” 

The LTR was formally founded in 1979 under the auspices of Louisiana’s Office of Public Health.

In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed The Cancer Registries Amendment Act making official a national program of cancer registries and monies to fund them.