Teachers TryScience

Part 1

1. In six small groups, ask students to find the section of the THINK app that says “How Does Disease Spread?” It will be located in the Understanding portion of the app. Have one student read aloud the section about the Spanish Influenza epidemic and another student read about the Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler. If necessary, tell students that epidemiology is the study of the cause and spread of disease.
2. Tell students that today they will be investigating different ways that we can learn about the spread of illness in order to be more effective in preventing this spread in their own school. To encourage brainstorming, lead a class discussion using some of the following questions.

Ask your students to think about the last time they were ill. Do they remember others in their class getting sick around the same time, or is the illness of one student usually an isolated event? Are there times of the year when it seems that sickness is more widespread in the school? Can your students think of any ways that they might figure out who was the principal carrier of the illness? Why might epidemiologists, virologists, public health officials, school staff and even the students themselves want to identify a principal carrier? What tools do doctors, healthcare professionals and even moms need in order to identify diseases, germs, viruses and bacteria? Are there objects around us that might either help or stop the spread of germs?

3. Now that students have begun thinking about the type of information that might be needed to better understand how illness spreads, they will identify different tools that might be useful in gathering or understanding this information. Instruct students to complete Part 1 of the Fight the Flu: Seeing Worksheet.

• A Cell - Optical Microscope
• Temperature - Thermometer
• Inside the Body - Endoscope
• A Heartbeat - Stethoscope
• The Human Architecture - X-Ray Machine
• A Virus - Electron Microscope
• An Instant Diagnosis - Microfluid Chip
• The Movement of People and Goods- RFID
• Airborne Toxins- Electronic Nose

4. After students have had about 10-12 minutes to review the Seeing timeline, ask the groups to share a few of the points they noted. Students should note any tools that other groups mention that were not already listed on their worksheet.
5. Now that students have had an opportunity to identify tools, they will think more deeply about the roles these tools play in preventing the spread of disease. Instruct students to complete Part 2 of the worksheet.
6. Ask students to summarize what type of information they need in order to further develop innovative methods for reducing the spread of illness.

1. Inform the students that they will now simulate the spread of seasonal influenza (the flu), and that in this scenario one of them is the initial vector of the illness. Only this person has begun to show symptoms (fever, body aches, chills, cough, runny nose, sore throat, etc.) and that it’s important to identify not only this “patient zero,” but also any other students that have been infected in order to stem the spread of this virus. Tell students that they will each receive a test tube filled with clear liquid. This liquid represents their “bodily fluid” that could potentially contain trace amounts of the virus. Explain that over the next few minutes they’ll first be simulating the spread of seasonal influenza and then working backwards in order to track the epidemic to the person from which it initiated (“patient zero”).
2. Give each student one prepared test tube, one clear centrifuge tube and one pipette/dropper.
3. Instruct students to use their worksheet to record the number of their test tube.
4. Students should simulate taking their own bodily fluid sample by removing 1 mL from their 10 mL test tube and placing it into the micro-centrifuge tube. Close the test tube and put it to the side. They will return to this small tube at the end of the activity. The remaining test tube should now contain 5mL of fluid.
5. Students should now select one and only one other student to interact with. The first partner should place 1 ML of fluid into the second partner’s test tube. Then partner 2 does the same to partner 1’s test tube. Students should be sure to record the number of their partner’s test tube on their worksheet.
6. Students should select a new partner and again, the two partners should mix fluids. Again, students should record the number of their partner’s test tube.
7. At this point you, the instructor, should place 5 drops of indicator into each student’s test tube. Tell students that if the fluid in their tube turns a different, brighter color, they have been infected. If the fluid stays a similar, dark color then they have not been infected.
8. Now students will work together to narrow down the “patient zero” to two possible individuals by a process of elimination. Students should use their worksheets to record who interacted with whom. As they begin to fill in the worksheet, they will be able to narrow down the possibilities based on information about who has tested positive for the illness and who has not.
9. Once students have identified two possible individuals, you will add 2 drops of indicator to these student’s small test tubes (the ones that were set aside at the beginning of the lab). The student whose “bodily fluid” stays a similar, dark color, was negative before becoming infected by the original causative agent. The student whose “bodily fluid” turns a different, brighter color, has been identified as “patient zero,” the original illness vector.
10. Wrap up this portion of the lesson by asking students to describe the process they used to find patient zero. How does this relate to strategies health officials use to track down or prevent an epidemic? What other types of information would be needed?

1. Tell students that tracking illness is not limited to interactions between people. Some bacteria and viruses are able to live on surfaces up to hours or even days after an infected person has touched them. For example, a sick person may touch a doorknob and walk away, and the germs will continue to thrive on the doorknob for hours. Surfaces that allow for the spread of disease are called fomites.
2. Ask students what types of surfaces might make good fomites and why this might be the case. Students may bring up factors such as temperature, porosity, and the material of the surface (i.e. wood, concrete, glass).
3. Tell students that you have swabbed 10 different areas of the classroom and placed them in a dark, warm area to allow bacteria and viruses to grow. Tell students which ten areas you swabbed and ask them to make predictions about which dishes will show the most growth.
4. After students have had an opportunity to make their predictions, reveal the dishes.
5. Now that students have seen which surfaces resulted in the most growth, they will investigate why this might be the case. This next part of the lesson can be as open-ended as you wish. Students can use thermometers, hand lenses, or even prepare slides and use microscopes to collect information about the different surfaces you swabbed.
6. After students have had about 15-20 minutes to collect data, they should return to their seats and begin to make sense of the data. Can they begin to draw conclusions about what microbes need to survive on surfaces? How do factors such as temperature, material, and light affect growth? What type of further experimentation would they need to do to draw more substantial conclusions? How can we use this information to better understand the spread of disease in the classroom?
7. Review the idea that disease-causing bacteria and viruses can be passed via coughing and sneezing as well as through fomites. To understand and prevent disease, scientists need different tools to not only see disease-causing microbes, but also to track patterns of how disease spreads through a population.

1. Instruct students to return to the Spanish Influenza example in the Understanding portion of the app. Ask one student to identify the year that this epidemic took place (1919). Emphasize that this epidemic took place less than 100 years ago, and in that relatively short time, scientists have made great strides in understanding how illness spreads.
2. Ask students to complete Part 3 of the worksheet. After they have had about 12 minutes to work, ask them to share responses to questions 2 and 3.
3. Begin to wrap up the discussion by emphasizing that the more information we have, the more we’re able to innovate. Creating one tool can lead to the creation of dozens more. Tell students that this is one reason that it is so important for them to act as innovators in their homes and schools.
4. Tell students that they will now use all that they’ve learned from this lesson to move to the next step in the innovation process - Mapping