Cancer and Stem-Transplantation

--Integrate StarLogo in Science Studies

Yuhong Sun

June 8, 2001

Unit Title: Cancer and Stem-Transplantation

Grade Level: Grade 5-12

Subject/Topic: Science Studies

Key Words: Science studies, comprehension, critical thinking, StarLogo

Time Frame: Two weeks/ four class per week/ 45 minutes per class

Number of students: 20 per class

Unit Designer: Wang Jia and Yuhong Sun

Summary of Lesson:

Cancer and Stem-transplantation is an interdisciplinary unit intended to provide students in Grade 5-12 with the basic knowledge and concepts of immune system, stem-transplantation and their important roles in fighting against cancer. The instruction and activities in the unit are designed to support students acquiring knowledge and critical thinking skills with StarLogo.

The immune system is vital in fighting against cancer because it scans the body to identify and eliminate any substance that it considers foreign. A new treatment: stem-transplantation is being experimented to increase white blood cells in the immune system. This lesson is designed to teach students the importance of immune system by StarLogo model. To paraphrase John Holland, the best way to learn about a system is to try to model it. That is why we set out to model the immune system, cancer and stem-transplantation and their vital connection with one other. This is a new approach to teach students science studies. The purpose is to help students better understand the abstract immune system by concrete processes such as what cancer is doing and replicating in patients’ bodies and how stem-transplantation is infused to help rebuild patients’ immune system and rapidly clear cancer cells. This model can not only provide students with the basics of the immune system but also teach them about the processes and dynamics of a simple immune response.

Link to Content Standards:

ISTE Technology Foundation Standards for Students

· Students use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity.

· Students use productivity tools to collaborate in constructing technology-enhanced models, and produce other creative works.

· Students develop positive attitudes toward technology uses that support lifelong learning, collaboration, personal pursuits, and productivity.

· Students practice responsible use of technology systems, information, and software.

· Students use technology resources for solving problems and making informed decisions.

· Students employ technology in the development of strategies for solving problems in the real world.

• Students are proficient in the use of technology.

Maine Learning Results:

Science and Technology:

Students will understand: There are similarities within the diversity of all living things. How living things depend on one another and on non-living aspects of the environment. Students will understand the basis for all life and that all living things change over time. Students will learn to formulate and justify ideas and to make informed decisions.

Students will be able to: Compare systems of classifying organisms including systems used by scientists Describe some structural and behavioral adaptations that allow organisms to survive in a changing environment Generate examples of the variety of ways that organisms interact (e.g. competition, predator/prey, parasitism/mutualism) Support reasoning by using a variety of evidence Construct logical arguments Apply analogous reasoning Discuss scientific and technological ideas and make conjectures and convincing arguments Evaluate individual and group communication for clarity, and work to improve communication

Unit Design Packet

Contents:

· Completed template pages

· Completed blueprint for performance task

· Competed blueprint for other evidence

· Completed documentation of StarLogo Immune System and Cancer Model

· List of materials and resources

· Assessment / Evaluation (rubrics)

• Resources

· Text books

· Handouts

· Books on Immune System and Cancer

· StarLogo

Step One

Goals of the unit:

• To know the types of cells that are important in the immune system
• To know the importance of immune system in fighting against cancer and other diseases
• To investigate the different mechanisms used by white blood cells as they protect the body from cancer
• To apply knowledge of the immune system to explain what white cells are doing as the body is invaded by cancer and other foreign invaders.
• To create a StarLogo model to represent the understanding of the decentralized immune system and its important role against cancer.

Step Two

Evidence that will show that students understand (performance tasks)

There are four performance tasks including the activities mini lecture, Internet inquiry, group work and StarLogo mode.

Performance One:

Phrased as a Topic:

· Identify the types of cells that are important in the immune system

Knowledge that is worth being familiar with

· White blood cells, the different mechanisms and the important role in the immune system

· Red cells and the position in the immune system

· Antibody and the significant role in immune system

· Cancer cells and how they destroy human beings’ immune system

Activities:

Teachers introduce to students the basic concepts of the immune system and the different types of cells that are important in the immune system.

Students are required to explore and be familiar with the basic knowledge of the immune system. After investigating the topics, students are required to write a summary of the role that each cell plays in the immune system.

Performance Two:

Phrased as a Topic:

· The different mechanisms used by white blood cells as they protect the body from foreign invaders

Important to know and do:

• The ability to understand the different types of white blood cells.
• The ability to understand where the white blood cells are located and how they work together in a highly integrated way.
• The ability to understand the mechanisms used by white blood cells in immune system.

Activities:

Students are divided into three groups. Each group integrates one topic. Group one explores The Different Types of White Blood Cells; group two investigates Where the White Blood Cells are Located and How They Work Together in a Highly Integrated Way and Group Three deals with The Mechanisms Used by White Blood Cells in Immune Systems. After the investigation, students gather together in groups and tell others the topics they are assigned.

Performance Three: Group Discussion and Oral presentation

Phrased as a Topic:

• Apply knowledge of the immune response to explain what cancer is doing and how stem-transplantation can be an effective approach to cure cancer

Important to know and do:

• The ability to understand the damage that cancer cells do to human beings’ bodies.
• The ability to understand the basic knowledge of stem-transplantation and its role in the immune system

Activities:

This is also a group work. Students are divided into groups of four. Students are required to do an in-depth Internet Inquiry and library research on this topic with their group members. After the research, students should first exchange their findings in the small group and each group chooses one representative to speak on this topic.

The project can be evaluated in two phases. First, evaluate the correct use of vocabulary and accurate graphics that accompanied with the oral discussion. The second phase is the evaluation of the oral presentation, creativity, and thorough and accurate presentation of material.

Performance Four: StarLogo Model

Create StarLogo Cancer and Stem-transplantation Model (See Sample Model)

Activities:

The final step in helping students have a better understanding of the immune system and its connection with cancer is to ask them to create a StarLogo immune system and cancer model. This is the comprehensive method to illustrate students’ comprehension, interpretation and evaluation of the immune system. The model should be the representations of students’ understanding of the decentralized immune system. While creating the models, students are encouraged to learn and consult the models that others made. After they finish their own model, they demonstrate it in class.

This activity can be two steps. First, study the models that others made. Second, have them create their models according to the models they have learned.

Other evidence that show students understand

n Group work and justification on explaining and interpreting the immune system and its vital connection with cancer.

n Teachers observing students’ process of investigating and understanding while listening to students’ conversations in group activities and keeping track of creating the StarLogo model.

Student self-assessment

Self-reflection identifying learning and confusion

Performance task blueprint

Desired understanding/ content standards that will be assessed through the tasks

n Understand and express the concepts of the immune system and stem-transplantation

n Understand and express the importance of immune system and stem-transplantation in fighting against cancer

Purpose of the assessment task?

Summative

Student products/performances that will provide evidence of desired understandings?

StarLogo model to illustrate students’ understanding of the immune system, stem-transplantation and the vital connection to cancer.

Criteria that will evaluate student products/performances

n Clear description of the concepts of the immune system, stem-transplantation and the interplay with cancer.

n Justification of comprehension and interpretations of the immune systems and its related knowledge

Type of scoring tools that will be used for evaluation

n Rubric (See Rubric)

Starlogo Cancer and Stem-Transplantation Model

(Appendex I)

(Version Q 1.2)

Yuhong Sun & Wang Jia

Introduction

This StarLogo mode demonstrates how potent stem-transplantation interacts with and fights against abnormal cells in cancer patients’ bodies. This model shows what cancer is doing and replicating in patients’ bodies and how stem-transplantation is infused to help rebuild patients’ immune system and rapidly clear cancer cells.

When a person is infected with cancer, the abnormal cells grow fast and grow out of control in his body and then replace his normal cells soon. The traditional treatment to cure cancer is usually chemotherapy, radiation or operation. But none of them are very effective to cure cancer completely. Take chemotherapy for example. This treatment can clear the abnormal cells very quickly but at the same time kill large amounts of white cells as well. This side effect usually causes patients to be vulnerable to other diseases because their immune system decreases greatly. Recently a new treatment is being experimented, which is called stem-transplantation.

Stem cells are immature cells that develop into specialized cells throughout the body and cells with broad stem cell potential can be found in various adult tissues, including the bone marrow and nervous system. At present, Bone marrow and stem cell transplantation is among the newest treatment option for cancer patients, especially those who have relapsed.

Bone Marrow is the spongy tissue found in the cavities of the body's bones, where all the body's blood cells are produced. Every type of blood cell in the marrow begins its life as a stem cell. The stem cells then divide and form different cells that make up human being’s blood and immune system. These include white cells that fight infection (leukocytes), red cells that carry oxygen (erythrocytes), and platelets that are clotting agents. Without bone marrow, and the disease fighting blood cells it produces, the immune system will be severely impaired and a patient will have little defense against even the most common infection.

When we teach students about the immune system, stem-transplantation is a good example to show how human beings’ immune system works to avert foreign invaders. In the immune system, white cells play an important role in fighting against an infection. After experimenting with StarLogo models for a while, we think that StarLogo model is the best approach to study the decentralized human beings’ immune system. StarLogo model has several advantages: it allows inclusion of the intrinsic complexity for the system without great difficulty and the descriptions of the various entities and interactions are made in biological rather than mathematical terms. Both Jack and I were trying hard to design a model of the immune system whose power is decreased by the cancer cells and then regained through the stem-transplantation.

Therefore, our model is a complex process expressing the fight between cancer cells and the stem-transplantation, which involves the collective and coordinated response of approximately 10¹² cells. In the effort to fit detailed experimental findings into a visualized model of the immune system, computer simulations and models are just beginning to play a role.

The StarLogo Immune System & Cancer Model

There are two running simulations including cancer cells (antigens), stem-transplantation (antibodies), B-cells, memory cells. We try to examine questions concerned with the overall behavior of the immune system by defining rules for local entities.

The basic entities and rules involved in our simplified immune system and cancer model are illustrated in the figure below. The model we implemented gives us a brief idea on the overall macro-behavior of an immune system cased by those localized micro-interactions.

The figure above shows the three major interactions in our immune system and cancer model:

1. Cancer enters the immune system. As the cancer cells grow fast, they soon get out of control and kill large amounts of white cells. The power of the patient’s immune system decreases.
2. Infusion of the harvested cells or bone marrow – as the harvested stem cells or marrow are infused in the patients’ body (transplanted), they travel through the circulatory system to the bone marrow to implant themselves and begin production of new healthy white cells. In time, the marrow produces a sufficient number of white cells to completely populate the immune system. The power of the patient’s immune system increases.
3. Stem-transplantation has much more chance to bind to cancer cells and then to produce corresponding Antibodies.
4. Antibodies have been built and then can bind to matched cancer and lead to its removal.
5. Cancer cells accompanied by some other disease attack the immune system again and are recognized by some of the white cells. This time the antibody exercises its power to encounter the abnormal cells and soon some of the abnormal cells are under control. But still a lot of non-recognized abnormal cells remain, continuing to fight against the white cells in order to populate the immune system.
6. Reinfusion of the harvested cells or bone marrow. Again, they travel through the immune system and reinforce the antibodies and strengthen the power of the immune system.

To express the fight between white cells and the cancer cells is an interesting procedure. To design a good immune system and cancer model, both Jack and I discussed a lot. We know that the white blood cells in our immune system fight infection by aggressively attacking foreign bodies and we assume that they operate in a decentralized fashion, obeying certain rules. We know that most of the time they are successful, but sometimes they aren’t able to stop an infection, for example cancer. What is the most effective way for white cells to absorb an infection? What are the best rules for these cells to follow?

The StarLogo Immune System and Cancer Model

The immune system is highly distributed and decentralized. So it is best to use StarLogo to model and analyze the causality between events.There are four different types of agents (B-cell, stem-transplantation, cancer, and antibody) in our immune system and cancer model. The four types exercise the interactions among them. Two major issues are the modeling of different agents and the inter-agents communication in StarLogo. In this model, we use two breads- cancer and stem-transplantation. Stem-transplantation includes B-cell (point 1), stem-cell (point 2) and Antibody (point 3), identified by their “points” variable value. The “C-infection” variable represents the specific cancer type. Cancer Cells:

• Wander randomly until one of the following events occurs.
• If it touches a chemical patch, drops chemical and follow the gradient "uphill"
• If it touches a white blood cell, attempts to infect it.
• 50% of the time, the cancer cell infects the white blood cell.
• 50% of the time, the cancer cell is eliminated.

The system always has a relatively stable amount of B-cells, each cell is randomly assigned an integer value between 0-99 to represent the specific affinity to certain cancer type. The white cells:

• Wander randomly until one of the following events occurs.
• If it touches a chemical patch, follows the gradient "uphill"
• If it touches a cancer cell, attempts to eliminate it.
• 50% of the time, the white cell eliminates the infected cell.
• 50% of the time, the white cell becomes infected itself.

The stem_rate slider decides the length of B-cell life cycle. The higher the number of the slider, the faster the B-cells would be generated and died (the more chance that B-cell encounters a cancer cell with the same “C-infection” type). Both stem-transplantation and antibody have certain energy level after being hatched. They consume energy while running around. However, Stem-transplantation consumes much less energy in order to make it live longer to simulate its “stem” property. A slider bar named “cancer-type” is used to let user select the cancer type (0-99). There is 1/99 chance of a B-cell generated that matched one specific cancer.

There are two different actions (procedures) for breeding “cancer” and “stem-transplantation”. Stem-transplantation (Stem button) could “produce, move, defend and die”, while cancer (Cancer button) only perform “produce, move and die”. There are three types of simulated interactions in the model: Cancer- B-cell; Cancer – Stem-transplantation; Cancer – Antibody. One important issue is the communication between agents. We use the if- statement to implement the synchronization between turtles.

Directions and Experiment:

The immune system and cancer model uses a 2-dimensional grid to represent a tiny portion of the body. The user interface of the model is illustrated in the figure below.

There are six buttons: set_cell, immune, set_cancer, infect, graph-it and stopit. There are six sliders: B_cell_num, stem_rate, clone_rate, cancer_num, cancer_type and cancer-hatch_rate.

• setup_cell button is used to setup B-cells and their distribution.
• B_cell slider controls the number of B-cells.
• Stem_rate controls the rate of B-cells. (The lower the number, the slower the B-cells respond to the cancer infection).
• B-Clone_rate controls the rate of B-cells or stem-cells. (The higher the number, the more B-cells or stem-cells are released).
• Set_cancer is the button to infuse certain amount of cancer cells into the system.
• Cancer_num is a slider to control the number of cancer cells.
• Cancer_type is a slider to set up the different cancer type.
• Cancer-hatch_rate is a slider to control the rate of cancer cells to be released. (The lower the number, the slower the cancer’s production).

A typical experiment is set up as follows. First the system is populated with the desired number of B-cells. Secondly, a certain type and amount of cancer is infused into the immune system. Thirdly, the simulation itself begins. Interactions can take place only between entities in the same patch. If more than one cancer is available, one of them will be randomly selected by “one-of-cancer-here” command. Cells are also allowed to hatch new cells or die out under certain conditions. The process can be repeated for as many times as desired. The above is only a brief introduction intended to let students understand the nature of the model. Further and deep understanding of the model depends on students’ practice.

The following images are screen dumps from an experiment with the StarLogo immune system model. The two images are views of the system at the same elapsed time after a primary (left) and secondary (right) infusion of the same type of cancer.

Reference:

Articles:

Brodie. W. (1999). Cancer Treatment and Immune System Enhancement Services We Provide. Cancer Treatment Center. Available on-line: http://drbodie.com/alternativemedicalservice.html

Cancer and the Immune System: the Vital Connection. Cancer Research Institute. Available on-line: http://www.cancerresearch.org/immhow.html

Fedoruk. M. (1998). Potential and Complexities of Teaching System Dynamics: Two Interviews. Available on-line: http://pages.nyu.edu/~mbf205/sd/SDT.html

Resnick. M. (19--) Beyond the Centralized Mindset. Epistemology and Learning Group. The Media Laboratory. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Resnick. & Wilensky (19--) Dividing into Complexity: Developing Probabilistic Decentralized Thinking through Role-Playing Activities. Journal of Learning Science, Vol. 7 #2. MIT Media Laboratory.

StarLogo Writeup (2000). Tools for Thought 2000. available on-line: http:www.kiang.net/MAS123/starlogo/page05.html

StarLogo Models

Craig Reynolds

http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

Bird Flock Model

http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Projects/starlogo/

Introduction to StarLogo

http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Projects/starlogo/

Samples of StarLogo

Rubric for Understanding

Category	Outstanding Achievement / A	Adequate Achievement /B	Some Effort /C	No Effort /D
Planning, Justification and Development: The "Pitch"	Fully answered why you choose this poem or precisely how you intend to pitch it. You showed complete creativity, sensitivity and insight to the poem.	Almost answered why you choose this poem. You showed some significant creativity, understanding or insight to the poem. Somewhat good pitch.	Some explanation of why the poem was chosen. Do not show significant creativity, understanding or insight to the poem. Poorly worded or inarticulate pitch.	Either no plan or an extremely underdeveloped plan: almost not answered why you choose this poem. Pitch is inadequate or missing.
Understanding of Poem	Clear interpretation of the poem. You hit all the main things that are important about the poem. You demonstrate a new and insightful reading of the poem. Your understanding of the context is clear.	Interpretation of poem is somewhat good or to the point. Most theme, image, or poetic tool are noticed. Poem’s context is clear but partially elaborated.	Little explanation of the poem. Incomplete interpretation of the poem chosen. "What is context?"	No effort is made to understand the poem, and no explanation is given of the poem.
Imagery and Illustration	Almost all of the images are appropriate. There is a great sense of coherence and a good sensitivity to the poem. The images illustrate and add to the viewer’s understanding of the poem.	Most images are appropriate, but there is moderate randomness here and there, or the poem's images and the storyboard images are nearly the same, with little to no "value added."	Images seem inappropriate or randomly chosen; they do not tie in well with the poem, or the poem’s images and the storyboard images are exactly the same, with no "value added."	Storyboard is nonexistent or incomplete.
Overall Creativity or "Voice"	Very good to outstanding sense of your own creative “voice”. Perhaps you actually made a fully realized project.	Moderate to good sense of creative “voice” in your explication and/or your storyboard.	Little to no sense of creative "voice" in your explication or storyboard.	Severe to total lack of creativity /originality.
Hyperstudio Technology	Appropriate use of fonts and font size. Graphics and color are used effectively to enhance the contents of the poems. All buttons move to designated cards with an effect.	Appropriate use of fonts and font size. Graphics and color are almost effectively used. All buttons can move to designated cards with an effect.	Inappropriate font choice or font size detracts from overall message. Graphics and color used not so effectively used. Not all buttons move to designated cards with an effect.	Inappropriate font choice or font size detracts from overall message. Only imported graphics are used in project.