Students investigate diabetes understanding how bodies regulate blood sugar. Through animated mysteries exploring insulin's role or live investigations testing glucose levels, conducting experiments modeling pancreas function and insulin response, and engineering solutions helping diabetics manage their condition through monitoring devices or dietary planning tools, students discover how body systems maintain homeostasis and what happens when regulatory mechanisms fail.
- Lesson 1
Lesson 1: The Solve
Jaylene eats constantly but stays hungry—her cells report they haven't seen glucose in ages! Students follow Mosa to the cellular level, then to the pancreas, discovering that insulin is the key hormone that allows cells to absorb glucose from the bloodstream. When insulin production fails or cells stop responding to it (diabetes), glucose can't enter cells, leaving them starving even when blood sugar is high. By the end, students understand the critical interaction between glucose and insulin.
- Lesson 2
Make: Create an App that Educates about Diabetes
Students diagram two pathways side by side: healthy glucose metabolism (insulin works, glucose enters cells, energy is produced) versus diabetic metabolism (insulin doesn't work, glucose stays in blood, cells starve). Then they research prevention strategies—healthy food choices and exercise regimens that help regulate blood sugar—and design a diabetes prevention app with meal plans, exercise routines, and educational screens explaining how glucose and insulin work.
- Lesson 3
Engineer: Design a new Insulin Pump
Design a "smart" insulin pump with advanced technology. Students research Type 1 diabetes (pancreas doesn't produce insulin) versus Type 2 diabetes (cells resist insulin), then engineer an insulin pump prototype with features like automatic glucose monitoring, scheduled insulin delivery, and patient alerts. They create detailed user manuals with diagrams, instructions, and explanations of how the pump helps patients manage blood sugar—determining which diabetes type benefits most from pump technology.
- Next Generation Science Standards
- Inquiry Scale
- Common Misconceptions
- Vocabulary
- Content Expert
- Leveled Reading
* To give our users the most comprehensive science resource, Mosa Mack is piloting a partnership with RocketLit, a provider of leveled science articles.
- Molecules for Life: You Need Sugar
This article introduces students to the connection between sugars and photosynthesis and how living things use stored energy in sugars like to get the energy they need to live.
RocketLit serves NGSS aligned reading at 7 reading levels.
- Molecules for Life: You Need Sugar