The Cancer (CA) Module focuses on understanding cancer as a disease, and the challenges of diagnosing and treating it. The Cancer Module has five units, each of which builds upon the others that came before it. The goal of each unit is to answer a key question about cancer, and what this means for our health.

Virtual Activities

To help support teachers who are using the Great Diseases Curriculum in their virtual classrooms, we have begun to modify some of our favorite activities from the curriculum to be used virtually. It is our hope that these modified activities can be used by teacher with minimum prep work, while still being hands-on and engaging for students. You can find our current list of virtual activities on this page.

Case Studies

To supplement the Cancer curriculum, we offer case studies to provide students the opportunity to experience how science is practiced. Students are asked to develop scientific questions, design experiments, analyze data, predict results, evaluate data, communicate, and develop models. The Great Diseases case studies are based on actual data obtained from primary research papers. This type of activity provides students with evidence in increments, mimicking the process of research.

The case studies work best when used in recommended sequence with their corresponding Great Diseases module(s); however, each can also be used as a “standalone” lesson.