1. Amy Kendig University of Minnesota November 29, 2012
Understanding Disease Spread
2. What is disease?
3. How does it spread?
4. Who answers our questions about disease? A mathematician
?
5. Vocabulary review Rate Epidemic Model
6. What do we want to know? 1. Will an epidemic occur? 2. How
does the rate of disease spread change as an epidemic progresses?
3. What does the spread of a real disease look like (as opposed to
a model)?
7. Will an epidemic occur? Materials 1 plastic cup 1 worksheet
27 round beans 3 flat beans Make groups of three students and wait
to be assigned a group letter (A,B, C)
8. Directions 1. Without looking in the cup, take the following
number of beans from your cup 2. If all beans are the same type,
simply return the beans to the cup. 3. If you have a mix of types,
return the flat ones to the cup, but replace the round ones with
flat ones. 4. At each round, record the total number of flat beans
in the cup (hint: do this by adding the number in the previous row
with the number of new white beans) 5. Repeat the process for each
round on the Group Number of beans to take A 2 B 3 C 4
9. Will an epidemic occur? First round with flat bean count
greater than 3 Group Letter Flat Bean Count Round
10. How does the rate of disease spread change as an epidemic
progresses? Directions 1. Label the axes of the graph 2. Draw a
point for each round at the correct number of white beans for that
round 3. Between each set of points, calculate the rate of change
in disease spread 4. To calculate rate: (Number of new flat
beans)/Round 5. Hint: substitute a real unit of time (hour, day,
week) for round to make a more realistic
11. How does the rate of disease spread change as an epidemic
progresses? Group Letter Observations
12. What does the spread of a real disease look like? New York
City Flu