Tracking a Disease

Around this time of the year many people ask the question, "Have you gotten a flu shot this year?" The flu can be considered a disease, and it is possible to track the spread of the flu.

The flu often begins in Asia and can be tracked around the world. Eventually it ends up here in Charlottesville, Virginia. How exactly does one track a disease? While reading through curriculum standards it is easy to find several key items: observe, classify and sequence, measure, interpret and analyze data, and construct graphs and tables to communicate experimental findings. Those are just a few of the skills that are developed while trying to track a disease.

In the real world investigators have spent considerable time trying to determine the cause of Hepatitis A in over 400 people in western Pennsylvania. The exact cause of the disease is still unknown, but green onions are one potential cause. Across the world the spread of HIV has been a major concern for more than two decades. The BBC News recently did a story that uses many graphs for showing the current status of the disease along with a prediction for the year 2010.

Our Spread of Disease Gizmo will let you explore three ways that disease can spread throughout a group of people in a room. With just a single room controlled environment in the Gizmo students can learn the basic skills of measurement, observing, graphing, and communicating their ideas. We have plans for two other Gizmos that will allow student to track down possible sources of disease on a larger scale than just one room, so stay tuned for those during the next year.

I enjoy using investigative skills to discover the source and cause of disease. I think I might have watched to many mystery movies and read adventure stories when I was growing up. 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'