Outbreak! Design an Antiviral Before It's Too Late!
Help me give my students connections to real world issues as they use the engineering and design process to engineer a pandemic response to a viral outbreak.
$739 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
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My middle school students are creative and full of potential. Every day I see their smiling faces lined outside my door as they prepare to engage in STEM projects. Many of my students are English Language Learners and they thrive in my classroom because the projects are hands-on and they have the opportunity to use vocabulary in context.
Students value STEM classes because they know the classes I teach are preparing them to be collaborative communicators for the careers of tomorrow.
This past week students were engaged in the Engineering Design Project to design a tall tower using only only 3 pieces of paper, 4 paper clips, and 50 cm of tape. My students collaborated to build their tower, constantly testing to see if it was free standing or taller than those around them. The brain power being exerted in the class to improve their design was almost palpable.
Many of my students come from poverty. They lack real world experiences that many of us take for granted. My goal for my students is to bring as much of the world as I can into my classroom, thus engaging them and instilling in them a need to learn more.
My Project
Students will understand the benefits and consequences of being in a world where we are more connected then ever. In a world where we are just a plane flight away from another state or country, diseases can spread rapidly.
Using this kit my students will become biomedical engineers as they explore how to prepare for outbreaks of highly contagious diseases.
Students will research various outbreaks in history and make correlations between geography and human movement. They will also compare and contrast methods used to contain these outbreaks, and how they impacted communities. By examining these catastrophic events in history and methods used to problem solve, they become globally competent students who can investigate the world, weigh perspectives, interact with diverse audiences, and take action.
In this real world outbreak scenario, my globally competent students will use the Engineering Design Process to take action and design an antiviral to stop a newly discovered virus from infecting a model cell. After all, what person doesn't want to save the world!
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Johnson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
