Period 7 - Epidemic

http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih6/Inquiry/activities/activity3/activity3.htm

Above is the website we used today.
We are trying to figure out if there is an epidemic at a town. We viewed the absences and found out that there were days where everyone was at band and other days where one third of the students were absent. We found out that most of the students where out on 5/20 in all schools. We also found out that a lot of the restaurants were doing unhealthy things. In some of the schools the ceiling tiles where missing and wires where exposed. There might have been the West Nile Virus. Classes with more people had more people absent. The students where back at school very quickly so the students might have gotten better quickly.
Today we looked at the band schedule for Jackson Middle School and Truman Middle School. The Jackson Middle School and Truman Middle School seemed to do a lot of activities together. We also looked at the reasons the students were absent and the symptoms they had. Most of the symptoms where the same in both schools so the might have the same disease. When we looked at what the parents said about the students being absent, they said it might be food poisoning or the flu. They all came back to school very quickly. There might be a epidemic at the schools.
Sophie 1

Period 7

IN the beginning of class today we talked about the homework. The homework was about how there was an epidemic in a computer game called World of Warcraft. Scientists studied how the disease spread and how the players reacted to the disease. It was very helpful for the scientists to study. Video games really help scientists because they show how the people react to something without actually harming or physically hurting them in real life.

After we finished talking about the homework we started talking about how one of the schools in New York and how they thought they were going through an epidemic. We had to observe the data on the schools website and determine if we thought they were going through an epidemic or if it was just a fluke. We had to take notes and observations based on the absency rate. In class today we did't get enough information to determine whether it was an epidemic or not.

Period 7 - Patient Zero Experiment

Today we talked about the way we are supposed to act when we come into class. This is because we came in very loud. So what we need to do is we have to come into class quietly, take out our homework, and use our indoor voices.

Then, we went back to the patient zero experiment that we left off from yesterday, we created a tree diagram as you can see to your left. We made two separate categories, based on our test, one with a list of the names of people that cannot be patient zero and another one with a couple names that could be patient zero.



To start off the experiment, we tested out who Vinny traded his fluid with. And he traded with LB, JM, JS. So Stephen believed that it was Jake that is patient zero. At first we agreed, but when we continued the tree diagram, it showed that Jake is not patient zero. After that we tested who Jonathan traded with, he traded with JP, NM, and SD. We found out that he might have been patient zero. To check our hypothesis, we saw who Jordan traded with. He traded with SF,SB, and CT. After, that we tested who Jimmy traded with. He traded with JP and SD, and they turned out to be sick after they traded with Jimmy. But when Sophie traded with NM, she also got sick after trading with Sophie. We know that Jimmy and Sophie are definitely patient zero. This is because everyone they traded with, got sick.

ADVICE: We were able to eliminate JP of being patient zero because when he interacted with CT and SB, he did not get either of them sick. But when JP interacted with JE, who hadn't interacted with any one before, JP got sick. So we know that JP is NOT pateint zero but JE is.

By, LB

Tree diagram - Period 7

Today in class, we tried to find out who started the disease. We could not find this out because to many people got sick. Also, the class before us did not clean out the test tube well enough because some of us started out with pink(represents illness), but we were not suppose too only if Mr. Finely put the indicator in our fluids. We wrote down everyone we transferred fluids with in order. Then we made a tree diagram with the list of people we transferred with. This would help us find out who patient zero was. Since, too many people got sick we could not track the person down that got everyone sick.

In the tree diagram if the person in our diagram ended up sick we would put an X next to there name. This would help us find out who patient zero was. Today in class, we redid the experiment so we could get better results, but we winded up not having enough time to make a tree diagram. In the experiment we got an amount of people to transfer fluids with. Mr.Finley told us the amount. Then, we went around with the transfer pipets and transferred fluids with other people. If our fluids turned purple we were sick. We wrote everyone we transferred with so we could make a tree diagram. Then, Mr. Finley came around and put indicator in our fluids if it turned purple you were sick. Then, we had to clean out the test tube and throw away the transfer pipets. in the other classes they did not clean the test tubes well enough so some of the indicator were still in the test tubes.