History Herald: Disease & Pandemics that Changed the World, History and Science!

History Herald: Disease and Pandemics that Changed The Course of History!
In this multiday class, students will learn about the historical pandemics and disease that change the path of history. We will explore all the way back to Athens to the earliest recorded pandemic through the early 20th century.

Students will go on an investigative journey to explore some of the world's most devastating pandemics and illness. This is a historical class, so we will explore how the disease occurred and spread (i.e. through trade, urbanization, etc.) and how it effected the places that it appeared (population loss, famine, uprisings, etc.) Each new disease that occurred had effects on the people that experienced it. It will be our job to understand those cultural, economic, and political effects and evaluated how each place handled the experience. 

Week One: 430 BCE - 541 CE - The Plague of Athens, Antonine Plague, & The Plague of Justinian
Week Two: 11th Century Leprosy
Week Three: 1300s Black Death
Week Four:  15th-17th Century - The Columbian Exchange
Week Five:  1545-1548 -The Cocoliztli Epidemic
Week Six: 1817- The 1st Cholera Pandemic
Week Seven: 1793-1905 - Yellow Fever
Week Eight: 1875- Fiji Measles Pandemic
Week Nine: 1889 - Russian Typhus
Week Ten: 1918 - Spanish Flu


Students will be encouraged to keep a record of each illness through an investigative handout that will be provided by the teacher. No prior knowledge will be needed for this class. 

Each class will be an engaging presentation that walks the students through each event while allowing collaborative and challenging discussion with peers. The purpose of this class it to show the historical changes that occurred through each event. This is NOT a medical class, so we will not go into the medical aspect of it beyond basic spreading of the disease.