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