Objectives:

After completing this exercise, a student will be able to:

1. Fully describe Hantavirus including information regarding symptoms, prognosis, and transmission.
2. Determine how epidemics can spread.

Teacher Instructions:

Students should use a variety of resources including health care professionals, public, school or professional libraries, health care specialists and or organizations. Following is the outline for the initial project and interdisciplinary ideas and extensions.

Student reports should be both written and oral. Both reports should include visual displays of information (graphs, charts, etc.). Students should use no less than three sources.

Report Format

1. Background- About disease
2. Diagnosis- What is affected by the disease?
3. Organism causing disease- What causes the disease?
4. Symptoms: List the initial signs if the disease. How is the disease distinguished from other or similar diseases?
5. Transmission: How is it transmitted?
6. Treatment: How is the disease treated? Are there any holistic treatments?
7. Prognosis: What is the chance of being cured if you contract the disease?

CONTENT CONNECTIONS: Environmental Science, Biology, Chemistry

Extensions:

• Social Studies- Find some early medical texts in medicine and compare early and modern viewpoints about diseases and their causation.
• Language Arts- Read and discuss Albert Camus' book "The Plague"
• Technology- Research how microscopy has affected the identification of diseases.
• Mathematics- Contact the local public health office to obtain demographics information about the prevalence of communicable diseases.
• Health- Create a fact sheet about different types of air-borne or water-borne disease. List at least 30 facts.
• Life and Career Skills- Pose a hypothetical question to members or your family on how they would respond to an epidemic or quarantine.
• Arts- Create a visual that can be used as a learning poster for the prevention of Hantavirus or Dengue.
• Foreign Languages and Cultures- Explore how plants and animals indigenous to other countries have helped in the fight to conquer diseases.

Applying Inquiry to the Problem: Complete a report that compares the Black Death Plague in the 14th Century to the modern diseases of Hantavirus and Dengue fever.  Compare the Black Death Plague of the 14th Century to the Influenza epidemic of 1918.  Interview survivors of previous epidemics or quarantines.

Resources:

Organization & Associations

• National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
  4733 Bethesda Avenue, St. 756
  Bethesda, MD 20814

Periodicals

• Journal of the American Medical Association
• Medical World News
• New England Journal of Medicine