Twelfth Grade, Pandemics – COVID-19 Projects, Lessons, Activities (14 results)

To slow the spread of COVID-19, the CDC recommends wearing a mask or cloth face covering—particularly in places where it is impossible to maintain social distancing (staying at least 6 feet away from others). This recommendation is for everyone age two or older (children under the age of two should not wear masks). Many instructions to make your own mask are available online. This activity will help you think through the process of designing and making a mask as an engineering problem.… Read more

Unlocking the three-dimensional structure of a protein is crucial to help scientists understand how it functions in our bodies and how it can cause devastating diseases if it becomes disrupted or interacts in the wrong way. However, figuring out the structure of a protein in three-dimensional space can be very challenging. Proteins are the functional units of our cells, and every protein is made up of a long chain of amino acids. Amino acids come in different shapes and sizes, and they have… Read more

What is R naught (R₀), what factors influence it, and how does it shape the infection curves of an epidemic? Students will explore these questions and more in this lesson plan. They will then use SimPandemic, a free online tool, to model what a COVID-19 outbreak looks like in communities with different R₀ values. Remote learning adaptation: This lesson plan can be conducted remotely. Students can work independently on the Explore section of the lesson plan using the Student… Read more

What exactly is a vaccine? Can vaccines prevent outbreaks? How effective does a vaccine need to be to help a population during an outbreak? Students will explore these questions and more in this lesson plan by first learning the biology behind vaccines. They will then use SimPandemic, a free online tool, to model different vaccine parameters to understand how vaccines affect both individuals and populations during a COVID-19 outbreak. Remote learning adaptation: This lesson plan can be… Read more