Infectious Disease Activities
These activities have been selected by master teachers as follow-up activities to reinforce the concepts learned during a visit to the Koshland Science Museum or a Virtual Field Trip.
They are designed for middle and high-school students and adhere to the National Academies' National Science Education Standards.
Infectious Disease: Evolving Challenges to Human Health
Controlling the HIV Pandemic
In this activity, students look at source data from the World Health Organization (WHO) to critically and comparatively analyze the state of the HIV pandemic in different countries. Students think critically about the public health measures necessary to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in different regions of the world.
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced
How Do Antiretroviral Drugs Work?
The purpose of this activity is engage students in studying the HIV viral infection pathway in a human cell. Students will study the life cycle using scientific thought processes in small groups to determine different points where the pathway could be inhibited to prevent the spread of the infection.
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced
BAM! Working the Epidemiologic Triangle
A lesson plan where students take on the role of epidemiologists studying an outbreak of E. coli. Students try to eradicate the outbreak by studying the "epidemiological triangle."
Level of Difficulty: Introductory
BAM! Learning About Giardia and Giardiasis
This is an in class activity where students simulate the role of doctors studying an outbreak of giardiasis. They study it by looking at the host’s mechanism of transfer and then take on the roles of doctors or parents who are learning about the disease.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate
BAM! Hand Washing Experiment
Students learn about the importance of maintaining proper hygiene in order to decrease the risk of microbes invading their body. They perform an experiment where they test for the presence of microbes, or simulate their presence, by washing their hands and then use various materials to test for how effectively they did so.
Level of Difficulty:
Introductory
BAM! Microbe Multiplication Magic
By following a simple formula modeling the replication of bacteria, students will determine how long it takes a bacteria population to grow in different environments. They will then plot graphs to shows their findings.
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate and Advanced
BAM! Poisoned Picnic
A fictitious scenario is posed where students take on the role of epidemiologists who are studying a group of individuals at school who became ill after sampling food at a picnic. They are to determine the cause of the illness and try to prevent future outbreaks.
Level of Difficulty: Advanced
NIH Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
Activity 2–Disease Detectives
Students take on the role of doctors, epidemiologists, and laboratory scientists to investigate the appearance of a mystery disease in a local population in a collaborative jigsaw format.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate
NIH Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
Activity 3–Superbugs: An Evolving Concern
Students follow either Carbo, the carbon atom, or Hydro, a water molecule, through the carbon or water cycle in order to learn about the cycles.
Level of Difficulty:
Advanced
NIH Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
Activity 4: Protecting the Herd
By using cards to represent immunity and lack thereof, students simulate the spread of a disease through two different populations. They then discuss the reasons for the disease spreading or not in each population and what this means in terms of public health.
Level of Difficulty:
Advanced
Medical Mysteries on the Web
An interactive game where students take on the role of medical mystery detectives on a mission to keep deadly diseases from spreading.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate and Advanced
Influenza Virus: A Tiny Moving Target
This is an in class activity where students simulate the spread a disease and the results of what happens when a virus begins to mutate. It looks specifically at the influenza virus and how it infects different types of cells. They will also have the opportunity to build their own virus from common household materials.
Level of Difficulty:
Advanced
Serendip: Microorganisms Everywhere
This is an in class laboratory activity where students plate bacteria that they find around them from objects and places of their choice to determine where bacteria flourish.
Level of Difficulty: Introductory and Intermediate
Serendip: How Does an Infectious Disease Spread?
The class models a population with a sick person amongst them. They transfer liquid from cups they are holding between each other and at the end the teacher uses an indicator to determine whether the "disease" spread or not. Students will then determine the source of the disease through a class discussion.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate
Rx for Survival: Disease Warriors
In this activity, students model a population that has a disease spreading through it. They will be playing a game of "Zap" where class members are killed off by being winked at discretely by the "zapper," representing someone who is carrying a virus. Some students will not be able to be killed off because they have a vaccine, but the zapper does not know that!
Level of Difficulty:
Introductory
Rx for Survival: Delivering Goods
In this activity, students are given global scenarios where they are asked to determine how to effectively deal with different epidemics. They then compare their responses to how different regions of the world deal with them given certain regional difficulties (both geographical and economic) they face.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate
Rx for Survival: Deadly Messengers
Students take a closer look at mosquitoes as vectors for disease and the difficulty of vector control through a simulated experience where they represent the mosquitoes carrying the pathogen and the people being bitten..
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate
Super Bugs: Bacterial Drug Resistance
This is a lesson plan geared towards teaching students through a modeled experience about the effectiveness of antibiotics, disease transmission, and the impacts of antibiotic resistance.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate
NY Times
Solutions or Impossibilities? HIV Prevention for African Children
After researching the response to the AIDS pandemic in both rural and urban areas of
Africa, students compare that to the response to the pandemic in America. They then
will write a position paper about ways to ameliorate the effects of the AIDS pandemic in Africa.
Level of Difficulty:Intermediate
Allele Frequencies and Sickle Cell Anemia
In this in class experiment, students look at the evolutionary relationship between sickle cell anemia and malaria. They use different types of beans to represent the alleles of the different genotypes and then calculate allele frequencies in the population based on whether individuals have sickle cell anemia and/or malaria.
Level of Difficulty:
Advanced
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Adherence: What Sticks Can Make You Sick
This activity is geared towards a more advanced student group. The focus of the experiment is to emphasize with students the interactions between microbes and cells by examining more closely the structure of their respective membranes.
Level of Difficulty:
Advanced
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Evaluation of Natural Compounds for Antimicrobial Activity
This activity introduces students to the medicinal value of certain plant extracts as antimicrobials.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate-Advanced
BSCS
Outbreak!
In this activity, students examine an outbreak of the Hantavirus by being gradually exposed to information that helps them discover it as an epidemiologist would.
Level of Difficulty:
Intermediate and Advanced
BSCS
Evolution in a Microcosm
Students study the high mutation rate in HIV and how that makes the use of medicinal treatment difficult through a series of activities and readings.
Level of Difficulty:
Advanced
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