Middle school (6-8) and High school (9-12) materials are being developed. While you wait, a list of currently available resources can be found at the bottom of the page. There are also a list of CancerEd Lesson Plans that can be easily adapted for older students!
Please provide your ideas, comments, and questions pertaining to middle or high school CancerEd materials here. Thank you for your thoughts!
-The CancerEd Team
CancerEd Lesson Plans
Mutations: Changes in the Instructions
30 minutes
Easy-to-follow instructions for making the best paper airplane!
Description: Students will follow instructions carefully to build and fly their own paper airplanes. Then, students will be instructed to make one change to their instructions to see how this "mutation" will affect their plane's flight. Will their mutations make their planes better or worse?
Supplementary Materials (click to download):
- Paper Airplane Instructions activity sheet
- How far did it fly? data collection sheet
A Model for Leukemia
15-20 minutes
Compare a healthy patient's blood to a leukemia patient's blood using these candy models.
Description: Create models of blood using various candies to represent red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and leukemic cells for students to recognize the difference between healthy blood and leukemic blood.
Supplementary Materials (click to download):
- What are the Effects? activity sheet
Cancer Treatment Garden
30 minutes
Description: Compare cancer treatment to ways one might weed a garden: pull the weed (surgery), laser the weed (radiation), or spraying the entire garden with weedkiller (chemo).
Supplementary Materials (click to download):
- Garden 1 (healthy garden) activity sheet
- Garden 2 activity sheet
- Garden 3 activity sheet
- Garden 4 (complete) activity sheet
- Garden 4 (to be filled in) activity sheet
Cancer Prevention & Healthy Habits
40 minutes
Description: Coming soon! This fun and interactive lesson is designed to teach kids about healthy habits and cancer prevention now that they understand the biology of cancer and cells. Students will participate in a game involving marshmallows to model how genetics and lifestyle habits influence cancer.
Supporting Those With Cancer
20 minutes (or more with optional project)
Description: Students work together to identify challenges and feelings experienced by cancer patients as well as ways to support these individuals. Optional: Students select and participate in a project that supports cancer patients and their families.
Supplementary Materials (click to download):
Resources for Teens
While we are currently focusing our efforts on developing curriculum and lesson plans for grades K-5, where there is still a need, please use this resource collection for grades 6-12 we have compiled.
For Teens Who Have Cancer
Previously called Teens Living With Cancer, this organization strives to connect teens diagnosed with cancer to appropriate support groups, resources and more. Their education selection covers a broad range of specific types of cancer, and allows the teen to become more informed and familiar with their new diagnosis.
- Providing much information on the basics of cancer, this is a great tool for teens to use. Their website offers lots definitions to slightly scary terms, provides easy-to-read explanations of common cancer treatments, and information on medical tests.. Because missing school can be a challenge, there are also tips for how to balance school and cancer. This can also be a tool for helping teens handle their emotions and learn about body systems that might be linked to their diagnosis.
- A program by Look Good...Feel Better, this website offers lots of great advice about how to deal with some of the side effects of cancer treatments. From information on styling wigs, to appearance-related side-effects, to dealing with social situations, it provides non-medical information to help teens navigate the side effects of treatment.
For Teens Who Have Parents (or Loved Ones) With Cancer
- Providing much information on the basics of cancer, this is a great tool for teens to use. Their website offers lots definitions to slightly scary terms, provides easy-to-read explanations of common cancer treatments, and information on medical tests.. This can also be a tool for helping teens handle their emotions and learn about body systems that might be linked to their parent's diagnosis.
For Parents Who Have Teens With Cancer
- Cancer Support Community
Brought to you by the same foundation who published the Frankly Speaking About Cancer series, this website offers free publications, mostly targeted towards parents who have cancer or have kids with cancer, about specific types of cancers to learn more about their diagnosis. They also include topics on caregiving, support, finances, treatments, living healthy, and a few versions in Spanish. Download them now on their website.
- Cancer Care Organization
Titled, "Helping Children and Teens Understand When a Parent or Loved One Has Cancer," this hour long podcast is focused on providing information about how to talk to your teen about your diagnosis. Written by behavioral psychologists, social workers, and oncologists, topics include: Five Common Questions Kids Ask, How to Tell Your Kids, How Do Kids Respond, Six Basic Needs of Kids Whose Parent Has Cancer, Tools to Help Kids and Teens Cope, & Questions for Our Panel of Experts.
For Parents Who Have Cancer & Want To Talk To Their Teens About It
Brought to you by the same foundation who published the Frankly Speaking About Cancer series, this website offers free publications, mostly targeted towards parents who have cancer or have kids with cancer, about specific types of cancers to learn more about their diagnosis. They also include topics on caregiving, support, finances, treatments, living healthy, and a few versions in Spanish. Download them now on their website.
For Teachers (Who Either Have Cancer, Have a Student With Cancer or Want to Teach About It)
Partnered with Discovery Education, this organization is the most developed and comprehensive so far in terms of educational materials for kids at the high school level. While we hope to provide lesson plans for this age range soon, Decoding Cancer is a great resource for teachers at this time. Their lesson topics include: What is Cancer?, Getting the Results, Genetics: Understanding Family History, Treatment: Understanding the Pathology, and Risk Reduction. Each lesson is composed of a powerpoint slide show and multiple downloadable handouts, and also includes a comprehensive teacher guide outlining the lesson and instructions on how to teach it.
This program has developed lesson plans to teach kids about cancer, much like CancerEd's goals. However, Live Strong at School is mostly composed of questions for the teachers to facilitate discussions. While a good starting point, not many resources or guidance is given to the teacher leading the lesson, and the biological basis of cancer is not covered. The lessons are downloadable on their website, and we hope this can be complementary to the lesson plans CancerEd provides about specific biological concepts, the emotional aspect of a diagnosis, coping, and more.
"The Cancer Education for Children Program is an outreach initiative of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center that aims to support K-12 educators by offering professional development opportunities that provide them with tools for teaching the basic science of cancer formation, treatment, and prevention." Cure4Kids is a comprehensive resource for teaching materials for grades 5-12. They include multiple topics and even offer the option to loan their teaching kits. For more lessons that include grades K-5, Cure4Kids can be used as a complement to the wide array of topics of lesson plans and resources provided by CancerEd.