Ebola | High School Unit

Epidemics: Ebola

The five lessons of the Epidemics: Ebola unit can be used as a stand alone or as a supplement to the Great Diseases Infectious Disease (ID) curriculum. The purpose of these lessons is to provide high school students with a basic understanding of how viruses cause disease, how infectious diseases spread to become epidemics and the challenges of bringing an epidemic under control, all from the perspective of the Ebola virus and the most recent Ebola epidemic that occurred in West Africa in 2014. Besides learning specific information about the Ebola epidemic, students will be able to extrapolate the general principles of infectiousness and disease spread to other emerging epidemics, and will appreciate the importance of vaccines in preventing disease spread.

Lesson 1

How do infectious diseases spread?

The goal of the first two lessons is to introduce students to the factors that influence how an infectious disease spreads through the population. This lesson has two main purposes: First, it allows students to actively experience a disease transmission simulation. Second, it relates the findings from the simulation to the notion that immunity and vaccination can impact the spread of infectious diseases. By addressing the question ‘if we vaccinate half the class and run the simulation again, how many people would get infected?’ students learn that vaccines not only protect individuals against disease but more importantly prevent the spread of disease in the population.

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Lesson 5