This packet is everything a parent or guide needs to assess Unit 07 at home — learning targets, the answers that count as correct, the mastery rubric, calibration examples, and a clipboard score sheet. No multiple-choice test: the student shows mastery by modeling how a disease spreads through a population and defending the prevention reasoning aloud.
By the end of the Disease, Immunity & Prevention unit, a student should be able to:
Six criteria, each judged Not yet / Approaching / Mastered (Page 3).
Model how a disease spreads; add a prevention step and compare.
The student explains why the immune system remembers a germ (Page 4).
Model setup, transmission data, and result kept distinct.
You are making a decision, not adding up points. For each criterion, decide whether the work is Not yet, Approaching, or Mastered — the column language tells you which. A criterion counts as mastered only when the student can both run the model and defend the prevention reasoning. A student carries three tokens per term; one token buys a re-do of one criterion on another day, so a single bad afternoon never sinks the unit.
Accept any answer in the synonyms column — they are pre-approved as equivalent. The third column flags the confusions that look close but are not yet, so you can coach precisely.
| Canonical answer | Accepted synonyms | Common confusion / discriminator |
|---|---|---|
| The immune system | ||
| Immune system | the body’s defense system | Barriers, cells, and memory working together — not a single organ |
| White blood cell | leukocyte / immune cell | Finds and destroys invaders; different types do different jobs |
| Pathogen | germ / disease-causing microbe | A microbe that can cause illness — not every microbe is one |
| Immune memory | acquired immunity | Why we rarely catch the same illness twice; the basis of how vaccines work |
| Spread & prevention | ||
| Transmission | how a disease spreads | Contact, droplets, or contaminated food/water — the route decides how to interrupt it |
| Vaccination | immunization | Trains immune memory with a safe signal — presented as science, not personal medical advice |
| Hygiene | handwashing / sanitation | Interrupts spread by removing pathogens; not the same as sterilizing everything |
| Community protection | population-level immunity | When enough of a group is protected, spread slows for everyone — a group pattern, not an individual cure |
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| How the immune system defends the body | Cannot say how the body protects itself from germs. | Names a defense or two but cannot explain how they work together. | Explains how the immune system defends the body — barriers like skin, white blood cells that fight invaders, and the memory that follows an infection or a vaccine. |
| How diseases spread | Cannot describe how an illness passes from one person to another. | Names a way disease spreads but cannot connect it to prevention. | Explains the main ways diseases spread — contact, droplets, contaminated food or water — and links each route to how it can be interrupted. |
| Evidence-based prevention | Cannot name an evidence-based way to prevent disease. | Lists a prevention step but cannot explain the evidence behind it. | Explains how hygiene and vaccination prevent disease and describes the scientific evidence for each — presented as science, not as personal medical advice. |
| Modeling disease transmission | Cannot show or predict how an illness moves through a group. | Runs a transmission model but cannot interpret what it shows. | Models how a disease spreads through a population and interprets how adding a prevention measure changes the outcome. |
| Anchor lab (immunity & disease-transmission modeling) | Skips the modeling activity or runs it without recording results. | Completes the model but cannot explain the pattern in the data. | Completes the immunity & disease-transmission model, records the data carefully, and explains how prevention measures change how far and fast the disease spreads. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Treats the science as isolated facts; makes no cross-domain connection. | Names a link to history, reading, or writing but cannot defend why it matters. | Connects the unit across History · Reading · Writing — including James Lind’s 1747 scurvy trial, the first controlled clinical trial and the root of evidence-based prevention — and defends why the connection matters. |
The split between Approaching and Mastered is reading the model: a student who can say how adding a prevention step changed how far and fast the disease spread has it. Ask to see the transmission data — the before-and-after numbers, not a single “it got better.”
Read these before you grade. They show what Mastered and Not yet actually sound like, plus the edge cases where you should coach rather than decide on the spot.
Student: ______________________________________ Date: _______________ Guide: _________________________
| # | Criterion | Decision | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How the immune system defends the body | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 2 | How diseases spread | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 3 | Evidence-based prevention | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 4 | Modeling disease transmission | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 5 | Anchor lab (immunity & disease-transmission modeling) | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 6 | Integration (cross-domain) | NY / Appr / Mast |
☐ No ☐ Yes — for criterion: __________ Tokens remaining: ☐ 3 ☐ 2 ☐ 1 ☐ 0
NY = Not yet · Appr = Approaching · Mast = Mastered · Unsure between two levels? Circle the lower one and note what a re-do would need.