clix - Health and Disease

The story of Malaria discovery represents how science progresses. Science often moves in very small steps. It may take many many years to prove something. Many ideas may initially be be rejected. However these ideas are discussed and tried by many people. Therefore evidence to support or reject an idea gathers. While discussing the story the focus should not be on the names of the scientists but rather the idea they had and what they did to test their ideas should be focussed.

The story highlights that people have been struggling against malaria for a long time. Although its cure has also been known for a long time controlling the spread has been a challenge. Every year hundreds of people die of Malaria in India.
The knowledge about what causes it and how it is spread has helped some countries remove malaria from their region. All of this knowledge did not come in a few days. It took centuries to gather the information we have today. The history of Malaria has some interesting twists, some failures and a few successes.

The objective of this story is to show that people slowly discovered many things about malaria. Many people contributed to this knowledge. Some of these people were even ridiculed for their ideas even though they were correct. One can say that the discovery of malaria happened in small pieces. A lot of scientists and doctors tried to decipher how it is caused. Many of them put forward ideas that were later proved wrong by other scientists.

The story of Malaria discovery represents how science progresses. Science often moves in very small steps. It may take many many years to prove something. Many ideas may initially be be rejected. However these ideas are discussed and tried by many people. Therefore evidence to support or reject an idea gathers.

While discussing the story the focus should not be on the names of the scientists but rather the idea they had and what they did to test their ideas should be focussed.

The story is not a complete account of history of Malaria. Many things like use of DDT to kill mosquitoes, different types of malaria and cure for malaria have not been discussed in this unit. If time permits teacher can discuss these things in the classroom.
After reading the story teachers can also discuss prevalence of malaria in their region and possible measures to tackle malaria.

[Contributed by administrator on 14. März 2018 19:59:14]

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Teacher's notes Malaria story