Class materials will be uploaded every Wednesday over the four weeks of this course. There will be four weeks worth of information and classwork.  Each week I will provide learning goals for that week, a PowerPoint presentation, and various activities/assignments for students to dive deeper into that week's content. Students will interact with the other students and myself by posting to the teacher-initiated discussion board each week and through several assignments which you can read about below. Students may e-mail me at any time!

Overview of Course Material: 
-Week 1: Exploring Microbe Characteristics with Pandemic Potential & Terminology 
---Students will complete a worksheet to practice with important terms surrounding virology and epidemiology. Various forms of practice will be used such as matching, fill-in-the-blank, and sentence work.
---Students will think critically as they explore characteristics of different microbes to see which ones are most likely to cause a pandemic.
---Students will create a "Pandemic Recipe".
---Students will connect with other students this week by writing a letter to describe how their life is being impacted by the current pandemic.

-Week 2: A dive in to the past! We will travel back to learn about pandemics the world has already faced and what we have learned from them. 
---Students will collaborate with other students this week by individually researching a pandemic, sharing their findings, and creating a document that compares/contrasts the information they found.
---Students will look more deeply in to epidemiology to see how certain trends work and how predictions for pandemics are made. 

-Week 3: All about viruses!
---Students will go on a Webquest to learn characteristics of viruses and what makes them so tricky to deal with!
---Students will gain insight on healthcare infrastructure and see potential threats a pandemic poses.

-Week 4: Our final week will focus on the importance of utilizing accurate scientific information and how to find it. We will discuss the governing bodies of healthcare and practice finding scientific information.
---Students will look at different memes/gifs/statements that are not backed by scientific data and analyze WHY they are incorrect and what could be harmful about sharing that inaccurate information.
---Students will share websites/videos/etc. that they have found to be helpful to create a "pool" of reliable scientific resources that their classmates can use.

**Due to the sensitivity and ongoing changes regarding Covid-19, I will not be teaching on it. The only time it will be brought up in this course is during the personal student letters on how their lives have been impacted.