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03.24.20
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Understanding Outbreaks
In coming weeks, your students will likely have questions about viruses: what they are, how they spread, how disease researchers trace and combat epidemics. This newsletter highlights our infectious disease resources featuring scientists on the front lines of combatting viral epidemics, including Zika, Ebola, and Nipah. Our collection of resources can be found here.
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Virus Explorers
Students tend to think all viruses are the same. In this interactive, with an accompanying worksheet, explore a variety of viruses including Zika, Ebola and HIV to see what makes them unique. Many of the viruses shown are zoonotic pathogens – pathogens that can be transmitted from animals to humans. In this Data Point activity, students examine the geographic distribution of mammal species, including carnivores, bats, and rodents, known to carry zoonotic pathogens.
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Disease Detectives
How do disease detectives trace the evolution of an outbreak? This video, also available in audio descriptive and Spanish versions, features computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti and disease ecologist Lina Moses discussing how the Ebola virus changed during the 2013-6 outbreak. Deepen students’ understanding of how viruses change over time with this activity, also available in Spanish. Students sort and analyze DNA sequences of Ebola viruses isolated from patients infected during the 2014 outbreak, in order to make claims about the evolution and transmission history of the virus.
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Fighting Zika
How can researchers use genetically modified mosquitoes to slow the transmission of diseases spread by mosquitoes and caused by viruses like Zika? In this video, now available in Spanish, see how scientists engineered mosquitoes to carry a “lethality” gene to help control wild-mosquito populations and curb the spread of disease. And what’s the effect of releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild? In this set of resources, students propose experiments to investigate this question. Students compare data from control and treatment areas using descriptive statistics, and construct their own data displays.
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Disease Ecology
Nipah virus is carried by fruit bats and can cause deadly disease in humans. In this video, also available in an audio-descriptive version, watch as researchers monitor bat populations for presence of the virus and discuss the importance of wildlife conservation to disease ecology. And see how epidemiologists find the source of a Nipah outbreak with this activity, which uses real data from an outbreak in Malaysia. Students perform epidemiological calculations and analyze evidence to make recommendations to public health officials about controlling viral spread.
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Argumentation and Application
Students often wonder if viruses are alive. In this Educator Voices article, Mitchell Community College professor Parks Collins describes an argumentation framework that uses our Virus Explorer interactive for addressing this question.
And if you’re interested in using our Stopping Mosquito-Borne Disease Click & Learn, Wisconsin educator Amy Fassler (pictured) explains how understanding viral life cycles is crucial to stopping outbreaks.
We know many educators are moving to teaching some or all of their classes online. If you use BioInteractive resources as part of your online courses, we want to hear from you! Email us at outreach@hhmi.org with questions or tips about using our resources with your classes.
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