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This guide will help students understand how viruses in other animals can infect people, sometimes leading to epidemics or pandemics. In a group activity, students will imagine they are health officials developing action plans to prevent or stop an epidemic.

Students will imagine that they are officers at the World Health Organization and will work in groups to develop action plans to prevent the spread of a new virus, such as coronavirus.

Students will answer questions about the Science News article “Why bat viruses are so dangerous,” which explores how the animals’ immune defenses might lead to killer human pathogens.

Students will explore the definitions of outbreak, epidemic and pandemic and research how an outbreak becomes an epidemic or pandemic.

This guide asks students to explore research into concussions and draw on their own experiences to think about the various signs and symptoms of injury or disease. After testing various materials, students will develop designs for protective headgear.

Concussions are a common sports injury. After reviewing Newton’s laws of motion, force diagrams, momentum, and elastic and inelastic collisions, students will test various materials that might protect the head from sports collisions and use those materials to design protective headgear.

Doctors often have to diagnose an injury or disease based on incomplete information. In this discussion, students will explore how symptoms and other biological information — including protein biomarkers in particular — can help doctors identify a problem and recommend a treatment.

Students will answer questions about the Science News article “Concussion leaves clues in the blood,” which examines the search for a better way to diagnose concussions.

Scientists would like to breed cats that don’t trigger allergies in people. By constructing and analyzing a Punnett square for two low-allergen cats, students will review key concepts including patterns and probabilities of inheritance, genotype, phenotype, genes, alleles, chromosomes and mutations.

This guide asks students to explore how scientists are combating cat allergies, apply problem-solving strategies to an allergen of their choice, review basic concepts in genetics and analyze Punnett squares.

Students will answer questions about the Science News article “How to lick cat allergies,” which explores some potential solutions to prevent and calm allergic reactions.

Students will identify and categorize various approaches to fending off cat allergies. After discussing the approaches, students will apply similar problem-solving strategies to a new allergen.