Model and Track Virus Outbreaks

New middle and high school projects help students explore real-world health and epidemiological challenges through measles outbreak simulations and COVID-19 data analysis.

Health and epidemiology Science projects - measles and Covid-19 tracking in waste water

New Epidemiology Projects for Students

In a post-pandemic world, modeling and analyzing data related to illnesses like measles and COVID-19 is an ongoing concern for health professionals and epidemiologists. Two new health and epidemiology projects help middle and high school students model how diseases spread, analyze how public health officials monitor outbreaks, and explore variables that can make a difference in the severity and duration of an outbreak.

Model and Visualize Measles and COVID-19 Outbreaks

1. 1. Simulate a Measles Outbreak

   In the Measles: How to Defeat a Debilitating Virus project, students use the free SimPandemic tool to model how outbreaks unfold over time. Students use ready-made simulations to explore how factors such as age distribution and vaccination rates within a community affect the spread of measles. Students then analyze outcomes such as infectious peaks, outbreak duration, total infections, and hospital capacity. They can then use the SimPandemic sandbox to run their own simulations and test additional scenarios.

   Students can also use SimPandemic to compare measles and COVID-19 outbreaks, explore how R₀ shapes an epidemic, and investigate herd immunity.

   

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXYzjSLv-JY
   
   

2. 2. Tracking COVID-19 in Wastewater

   In the Tracking SARS-CoV-2 Spread from Wastewater health and human biology project, students learn how medical professionals and epidemiologists track infectious diseases, including by measuring viral load through direct testing. Using data visualization tools and wastewater testing data, students can visualize wastewater data to explore COVID-19 trends over time and explore another method for tracking outbreaks. With a free dataset and a ready-made Colab notebook, students can compare COVID-19 wastewater data from a specific state with national data to identify similarities, differences, and trends.

   

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De3f9_TyF3E
   
   

New Epidemiology Projects for Students

Students can explore careers in health, biology, and data science with career profiles like these:

• Epidemiologist
• Microbiologist
• Health Educator
• Statistician
• Data Scientist
• Bioinformatics Scientist