Activity 1.1 - Appeal to donate blood

Learning aims:

• Introductory presentation from local media or from the Internet appealing to people to donate blood.
• Students should be aware of the fact that anyone can get into a situation when their life depends on other people willingness to help. Not everyone, however, can help, even if they wanted. Sometimes complete strangers help us and it is our moral duty to help others when possible.
• Students should think about biological properties of blood and technical possibilities of keeping blood suitable for transfer intoanother body.

Materials:

An article from a local paper, web page or a recording of TV news appeal to people to donate blood.

Suggestions for use:

Pupils get acquainted with the appeal and then talk with the teacher about who and why might need blood transfusion.

Further in discussion they are expected to come to a conclusion that if we are to help someone who needs blood transfusion, we need to find out the answers to the following questions:

• Who and on what conditions can donate blood?
• Can a patient be given blood of any donor? If not, why?
• Is it possible to keep a donated blood for later use? Which blood properties must be preserved?

Pupils first try to answer these questions on their own but will probably soon realise they do not have enough information to work out a satisfactory answer.

Possible questions:

• What diseases might a patient who needs a blood transfusion have?
• How much blood can be taken without endangering the donor?
• How long can a blood be stored?