How do blood transfusions work?

 Flipped lesson plan (B2 and above): How do blood transfusions work? - BUY ME A COFFEE if you like my FREE ESL content

Learn about the life-saving science of blood transfusions!

In this B2/C1 worksheet, students will learn about the development of blood transfusion technology, from experiments with sheep blood in the 1600s to the blood banks of WW1. They will also see blood-related idioms, and read a poem written by a Canadian soldier/physician who fought and died in WW1.

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Lesson activities:

1) To warm up, students will read 'In Flanders Field', a poem written by a Canadian soldier/physician in WW1. They will have to discuss their interpretation, as well as find the definitions of advanced vocabulary: foe, quarrel, poppies, lark, row on row. 

2) Students will watch a Ted-Ed video explaining the early beginnings of blood-transfusion technology, from the discovery of blood groups to the development of anticoagulants. Students will engage with scientific vocabulary: antibodies, antigens, cells, blood clots.

3) Next, students will see six blood-related idioms: blood is thicker than water; bad blood; to be in your blood; blood, sweat and tears; to get blood from a stone; and to make someone's blood boil. They will get a chance to see them in sentences, and to create their own sentences with these idioms. 

4) Finally, they will read a short article focusing on the role WW1 played in accelerating blood-transfusion technology. Advanced vocabulary: viable, horrors, propelled, to heighten, impractical, to catch on.