Celebrating Success!
BASIS Goes Global: One Health Extends Beyond the Bay
Across the country, scientists who participate in science education outreach with CRS bring their enthusiasm and dedication with them as their careers take them beyond the Bay Area. Now, one ambitious scientist has extended BASIS lessons across the globe!
Deborah Thomson, a veterinarian who discovered her passion for teaching after she began leading BASIS lessons with CRS three years ago. The experience led her to teach about One Health, a collaborative approach between physicians, veterinarians, and environmental scientists who aim to achieve optimal health outcomes through recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.
Deb’s initial BASIS lesson, “Outbreak,” showed how a zoonotic disease could pass between humans and animals. Reflecting on her early outreach experiences, Deb told CRS, “Your grassroots efforts have a large local impact and, I expect, your influence will spread to nearby communities, cross generation gaps and, eventually, reach the rest of the world. Your program and the children have greatly inspired me to work harder.”
Deb founded OneHealthLessons.com to further share her One Health lessons with teachers in the Bay Area and beyond. As she built her network of scientists to teach with, Deb found that the demand for One Health lessons to be great outside of the United States. She built a team to help translate One Health lessons to Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, and more!
When the pandemic hit, the “Outbreak” lesson, exploring virus transmission from species to species and integrating info about COVID-1, provided a powerful way for children to build an understanding of the disease that had disrupted their world. In addition to teaching students how coronavirus first was contracted by humans and how it is spread, the lesson also teaches students how they can prevent COVID-19 from being spread in their own communities.
One teacher shared: “The learning that they did in your class today is hands down some of the best learning they have done this year. I really liked your slides and how you asked students to make observations and ask questions.”
Building off this virtual learning, Deb started an internship program, with the goal to bring the One Health lessons to communities around the world, developing leaders that can teach One Health in their communities. In the inaugural class there are 14 interns reaching students in Nigeria, Uganda, Canada, China, and Ecuador.
We are so inspired by the work that these passionate scientists are doing and are excited to see the impact that these lessons have around the world!