Kehoe-France Students Participate in Disease Outbreak Simulation “Operation Outbreak”
Kehoe-France Middle School students kicked off their Design unit on disease prevention with an outbreak simulation called “Operation Outbreak.”
Operation Outbreak (OO) is an innovative platform for STEM education on infectious diseases and outbreak preparedness created by Sarasota Military Academy and the Sabeti Lab at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. This platform integrates an academic unit covering relevant science and humanities subjects with a culminating “outbreak simulation” experiential learning activity.
Kehoe-France was one of the first schools to get to recreate this amazing learning experience in the United States.
This activity replicates a real-world outbreak scenario and guides students on how to respond through a coordinated effort and use of technology, teaching them biology and public health in the process.
Students used data and resources from public health organizations, such as the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, to prepare for the OO event.
During the event, students played along with a facsimile of a disease epidemic on Kehoe-France’s campus. Some students’ iPads became “infected” with a disease that gave them certain “symptoms” and prevented them from going about their afternoon routines. Other students were able to complete their investigations as epidemiologists unaffected by the disease. Students learned how easily citizens, particularly those in underdeveloped countries, contract potentially life-threatening diseases every day.
A special thanks to Dr. Todd Brown of the Inspire Project and Operation Outbreak, and Dr. Pardis Sabeti and Dr. Andres Colubri of Harvard Labs, who will use our data to help the CDC learn more about disease prevention.
