Lesson 7: Outbreaks and Pandemics

learning outcomes

By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

  • Understand that there are no handbooks for living through epidemics and pandemics

  • Understand that epidemics and pandemics are entirely predictable and natural

  • Discuss how being an animist is not easy

  • Discuss how the smalls give us a startling reminder of our own mortality

  • Discuss how pandemics have personalities


additional resources

Additional resources are posted here for your general interest - the following aren’t integral to the learning but may be supportive. They include music, articles, interviews, writing, and primary scientific literature which you may (or may not) find interesting.

recommended viewing

recommended reading

What strength really means when you’re sick (Ed Yong in The Atlantic) “Equating disease with warfare, and recovery with strength, means that death and disability are linked to failure and weakness.”

What does it take to wipe out a disease?

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness

How to heal the ‘mass trauma’ of COVID-19

Using satellite images of environmental changes to predict infectious disease