DP2

SEPTEMBER 2023 MR. DRAME

CHAPTER 3: HUMAN INGENUITY
Unit 3.1: Future humans
 Unit 3.1: Future humans
Learning objectives:
- Explore how science and
technology are affecting human life.
- Be able to present and discuss
the ethics issues surrounding
science and technology.
 Unit 3.1: Future humans

Watch and listen

- Listen to audio track 7, which is about nanorobots. What you hear
might:
• ‘connect’ with what you already know
• ‘extend’ your knowledge on the subject
• ‘challenge’ your understanding of it
 Unit 3.1: Future humans

Watch and listen

- Decide whether the following statements are true or false. Justify your answers with phrases
from the recording as much as you remember them.
a- The speaker’s main aim is to get more money for his team’s research.
b- The speaker believes that robots are more intelligent than humans.
c- Nanorobots are different from other robots.
d- Nanorobots, according to to the speaker, have a mind of their own.
e- Nanorobots can prevent people from ageing.
f- The speaker and his team spend as much time and money gathering cell material as they do on
the rest of their research.
g- According to the speaker, progress in the field of chemotherapy is slow.
h- the speaker would like to run tests on live organisms.
 Unit 3.1: Future humans

Watch and listen

- Do an online search for the video titled ‘Human Clones, Through the Wormhole’ by the Science
Channel. Answer the questions below
a- What is the primary thing you need to clone an individual?
b- Why can’t geneticists currently implant a human embryo into a uterus?.
c- Why is it difficult for geneticists to obtain funding for their research?
d- Even if Robert Lanza could easily get more human embryos (or human ‘eggs’), why might he
need hundreds of them?
e- How does Robert Lanza explain the chances of have successfully cloning a human being?
f- Why does the narrator believe that humans will be cloned?
g- Why is cloning a person not the same as duplicating a person?
h- Complete the final sentence of the video: ‘Perhaps the key to life after death is not to grow an
entirely new body, but to …
Unit 3.1: Future humans

SL task

Writing: Think about this

visual stimulus on GMO.
Write a set of notes that you
could use for a presentation
in class.
 Unit 3.1: Future humans

HL task Discuss these questions:

a- If you could select the gender of
your child, would you want a girl or a
boy? How do you justify your choice?
b- Should gender selection be
something for the wealthy, everyone or
no-one?
c- What if everyone could select the
gender of their child? How might this
change the make-up of the world’s
population in 50 years’ time? Do you
think couples should be allowed to
select the color of their child’s hair and
eyes?
d- Look at this image. Is this the ideal
family? Why might many people think
this?
 Unit 3.1: Future humans

Reflect
- In this unit you have explored topics about advances in science and human life. Discuss your
answers to the following questions as a class.
a- What ideas froths unit did you find most interesting?
b- Do you think that government organisations should put limitations on the progress of science?
Are there some developments, such as the cloning of humans, that should be forbidden?.
c- What is the future for humans? Based on on the developments of recent years, predict what the
future will be like.