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The newest Zika outbreak in Miami, Florida offers a unique opportunity to study the spread of an infectious disease in the United States. Students could integrate an engineering component to this by designing a method to reduce the risk of mosquito bites. Similar to the Ebola outbreak a few years ago students can make a real world connection to the concept of the prevention and transmission of infectious diseases. 

I really like this idea as it is definitely relevant and will be meaningful for students. I loved the engineering idea as part of this work also. I'm wondering what grade level are we talking about? Are you in a #NGSS adopted state? Which standard will this be meeting? I would love to flesh this out and see what it might look like for students. Kathy

This would be geared towards my 8th grade students. We are not a NGSS adopted state, but our new standards are fairly similar. Specifically, it would address the difference between an infectious and non-infectious disease and relating the disease to organisms that cause them. I use a modeling style of teaching where students participate in small group and whole class discussion to learn about a topic. I plan to start with the focus question of "What's the difference between infectious and non-infectious diseases?" As a class we'll come to an consensus and then brainstorm diseases that fall into each of these categories. Hopefully, with all the news coverage regarding Zika and the Olympics students will include this disease on their list. I'd like to (briefly) touch on a variety of transmission methods before focusing in on the Zika virus itself. I have a mini activity the simulates the transmission of germs with a black light lotion. From there I'd like for students to focus on the effects of Zika both socially and scientifically.

This looks like a good resource to use in discussing this topic: Infectious Disease Engaging multimedia resources to teach about viruses, the immune systems, and infectious disease From https://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/infectious-disease >

Thanks for the great site! I love that students can compare different virus structures. Also, the virus outbreak interactive would be a great resource for students to understand mosquito born diseases. They focus on dengue fever, but Zika would be very applicable to this. This same interactive also brainstorms different ways to try and control the spread of a mosquito born disease. Groups could choose to focus on either controlling the mosquito population or treatment of the disease itself.