Infectious Disease: Evolving Challenges to Human Health
NIH Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
Activity 4: Protecting the Herd
 Overview of Activity
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.
Activity Type: In Class Simulation/Role Play and Online Simulation
URLs: http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/Diseases/
guide/activity4-1.htm
Grade Level: 9-12
Level of Difficulty:Advanced
Amount of Time Required for Activity: Two 40-minute Class Periods
Recommended Uses:
Prior to attending exhibit, this activity may be used to engage students in thinking about the relationship between vaccines, immunity, and global wellbeing.
After visiting the exhibit, it may be used to reinforce how different health professionals study the spread of infectious disease.
Description
In this inquiry based activity, students will simulate the spread of an infectious disease under different environmental conditions after reading about a measles outbreak at "Western High School." They will then simulate being ill by using different colored cards to indicate whether they are sick, recovering, or healthy. Different scenarios will be played out and numbers of ill students will be tallied and recorded for each of the following class scenarios:
0% immune, 100% susceptible;
50% immune, 50% susceptible.
Class discussions about what the results mean should then follow. This simulation and discussion should take one class period.
An optional second day activity is a computer-run simulation looking at disease transmission and how it is impacted by virulence, duration of infection, rate of transmission, and immunity level. Students run the simulation and then discuss in groups epidemic likelihood based on the different disease characteristics. Once they have completed this simulation, the last part of the activity asks them to predict immunization levels necessary to prevent epidemics of different diseases based on the knowledge they have just acquired, while offering a rationale for their responses.
This activity is designed as part of a series developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Relation to the Science Standards
High School
Content Standard A - Abilities Necessary to Do Scientific Inquiry
Content Standard C - Biological Evolution
Content Standard E - Understandings About Science and Technology
Content Standard F - Personal and Community Health
Content Standard F - Science and Technology in Local, National, and Global Challenges
Related Part of the Exhibit
Vaccines and Immunity
Global Distribution of Disease
Additional Related Links
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/Diseases/
guide/pdfs/ACT4.PDF
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/Diseases/
guide/pdfs/ACT4M.PDF
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/Diseases/
activities/activity4.htm
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