Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes – Part A: Tuning in
15 minutes – Part B: How do kidneys work?
30 minutes – Part C: Promoting health
5 minutes – Reflection:

Part A: Tuning in

Step 1.

Ask students to make their hands into fists, and notice the size. Tell students that this is about the size of a very important organ, their kidneys. You can point out that your own fists are bigger as adults, and so are your kidneys. Next, ask students to reach behind their back and place their fists on either side of their spine, towards the middle of their backs. Explain that this is roughly where your kidneys are located.

Yes, you have two kidneys!

Go on to explain that kidneys play a vital role in keeping you healthy and that, in this lesson, they will learn how kidneys work.

Step 2.

Direct student's attention to the jar, funnel, and marbles. Explain that one of the kidneys’ jobs is to filter the unneeded waste from what you eat and drink and expel it in your urine. In this demonstration, the marbles will represent the sugar, the funnel your kidneys, and the jar is your urine. Drop one marble at a time into the funnel. Explain that, for most healthy people, when there’s an appropriate amount of sugar to filter, your kidneys can manage to do their job. Now, pour in many marbles at once. Explain to your class that the kidneys can’t keep up and stop working effectively when there’s too much. When this happens, your kidneys become damaged and the microscopic filters, the nephrons, stop working. Once the nephrons are damaged, they can't be repaired. Over time, this becomes kidney disease.

Part B: How do kidneys work?

Step 1.

Present and view the video ‘How do your kidneys work?’ from TedEd (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN3MFhYPWWo). While watching the video, you may like to ask students to complete a See, Think, Wonder activity (see Student Worksheet) to help guide student thinking and understanding of the topic. Alternatively or in conjunction with, you could run a class quiz and use the questions provided below.

Read through the questions before watching the video to guide student attention.

What is the main role of your kidneys? Suggested answers: To dispose of waste products from your body by turning them into the urine
How many times per day does your kidney filter your blood? Suggested answers: 20-25
What is the name of the ‘filtering unit’ that makes the kidneys so useful? Suggested answer: Nephrons
What does the glomerulus do? Suggested answers: Filter the blood
What is the name of the section of your kidney that returns the substances your body needs and filters the waste into your urine? Suggested answers: Tubules.

Step 2.

When you have shared the answers to the questions, ask students to sit in a group and display the ‘kidney anatomy’ labels from the teacher resources. Challenge students to correctly place these on a diagram of the kidneys and nephrons. If you have access to an interactive display, you could do this activity digitally. Otherwise, prepare the materials in advance by printing and cutting out the label. Encourage discussion around how the direction of the arrows and the colours can provide clues as to the role of each part.

Part C: Promoting Health

Step 1.

Remind students of the analogy used in Part A. If your kidneys have too much waste to filter, they will find it hard to keep it up and eventually become too sluggish to work properly. This is called kidney disease. Another factor that can lead to developing kidney disease is type 2 diabetes diagnosis.

Step 2.

Explain to students that there is more than one type of diabetes, and they have different causes. In these lessons, we’re learning about Type 2 diabetes because that is the one we have the power to do something about! Type 1 diabetes is a disease that isn’t caused by our lifestyle choices —food, beverages, activity level. Rather, type 1 diabetes is a condition in which the pancreas ( the organ of the digestive system and endocrine system) produces very little or no insulin. It is believed type 1 diabetes is caused by genes and environmental factors, such as viruses, that might trigger the disease. Complete this short activity with students to enforce the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes:

Draw a T-chart on the board, with one side headed ‘Type 1’ and the other ‘Type 2’. Read out the following criteria, and ask students whether, given what you have just explained, they think it belongs under Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes:

It is an auto-immune disease (something your body creates): Type 1
Is caused by lifestyle choices such as eating too many processed foods, high sugar diet, and lack of physical activity: Type 2
Is preventable: Type 2
Can not be prevented: Type 1
Progresses over time: Type 2
85-90% of all cases of diabetes: Type 2
10% of all cases of diabetes: Type 1
Generally affects children and adults under 30: Type 1
It generally affects adults over 45, but it is starting to affect younger people too: Type 2
Is the major cause of kidney disease: Type 2.

When completed, reflect on anything surprising to students. End with the following: ‘You may know family members who have diabetes and need treatment. Unfortunately, until recently, many people didn’t know that what they eat and drink might damage their kidneys- so they didn’t think so much about it until it was too late. That’s why we want to teach you, so you have the power to change your actions now!

Step 3.

Play this video (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/04/wolrdhealthday2016/) from UN explaining type 2 Diabetes. You may wish students to take notes on their student worksheets to prompt their memory. Guide student discussion around what causes this form of diabetes by asking the class to create three sentences, using these starting prompts:

Type 2 diabetes is a global health problem because…
Type 2 diabetes is a global health problem, but...
Type 2 diabetes is a global health problem, so...

Record the class's responses on the board.

Step 4.

Introduce students to the UN sustainability goals, specifically Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing. Provide students with the Goal 3 targets

(https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/) and ask them to highlight which target would be affected by people having diabetes or kidney disease.

You may need to define a non-communicable disease to allow success in this!

Once students have established which sustainability goal is affected ask your class to consider what can be done to ensure the UN sustainability targets are met.

Do they think it is our responsibility or the government's responsibility? or both?
Ask students to explain some of the things they think the government could do to help us.

Step 5.

Explain to students that their task is to create a poster aimed at younger students, showing them what they now know about kidneys and how to keep them healthy. Provide some examples to give ideas, such as the cartoon images used in the diabetes video, along with the ‘rethink your drink’ campaign posters attached as a teacher resource, or even the idea of the kidney as a filter.

Reflection

Ask students to write a ‘pledge to my kidneys,’ promising their kidneys that they won’t bombard them with unhealthy food and drink.

Differentiated Learning

Extension

Choose another way to present the information through a news presentation, creating a script, and using filmmaking software to edit
Read further about the impact of type 2 diabetes on Australia’s health system, highlighting new vocabulary and finding their definitions.

Provisions for Learning Support

Allow students to discuss rather than record any responses
Allow students to choose the medium they’d like to use to show their learning.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

SugarByHalf - Meet Your Kidneys

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