Vitamin D

This activity is designed to engage a wider range of students. Using the principles of 'science capital', it makes the issue of Vitamin D deficiency highly accessible and relevant to students' everyday experience. Rickets and other bone diseases in young people have risen 400%,  Some scientists are recommending teenagers take vitamin D supplements, particularly in autumn and winter. The activity teaches students how to analyse patterns in data, so they can calculate their vitamin D intake from food and the sun and come to an informed decision.

Learning objectives

• Digestion: describe health effects of vitamin D deficiency. 
• Analyse patterns: interpret a line graph to suggest relationships between variables, and read values from the graph. (KS3 Science Syllabus)

Blueprint curriculum link

• Unit: Tissues & organs 
• Concept: Digestive system: Organs of the digestive system are adapted to break large food molecules into small nutrients which can travel in the blood
• Skills: Conclusions: Deduce relationships in data, using patterns,  interpolation and extrapolation
• Learning stage: Analyse

 Activity contents

• Teachers guide
• PowerPoint file

The activity is delivered as a zip file. After you checkout, you will be sent an email with the link to download it.

Weblinks

BBC - Vitamin D

Everyone should consider taking vitamin D supplements in autumn and winter, public health advice for the UK recommends.

Science Capital made clear

An accessible summary of the concept of science capital and how it influences students' attitudes towards science and scientific careers.

Q&A: Vitamin D

An overview of the new UK guidance on vitamin D supplements in question and answer form, accessible to fluent readers.

Rickets makes a comeback

News article about the return of rickets.

Vitamins and minerals - Vitamin D

Advice on vitamin D from the NHS, accessible to fluent readers.

Recent official vitamin D guidance

Report from the NHS about a recent article questioning government advice on vitamin D supplements.