Classroom Activities About One Health
Several hands-on activities have been developed to teach students about foodborne illnesses and zoonotic diseases.
Zoonosis and Your Pets
Audience: Elementary School and Middle School
This lab activity sheds light on the effectiveness of proper hand-washing after handling animals in order to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases. After learning about the transition of tick-borne diseases from animals to humans through a short PowerPoint presentation, students handle stuffed animals coated with Glo Germ powder, which represents a tick-carried illness. Students are asked to wash their hands using various methods. An ultraviolet light reveals the effectiveness of each hand-washing method.
Download the instructions and the accompanying PowerPoint presentation
Cole Slaw Culprit Mystery
Audience: Middle School
This lab activity looks at how contaminated food can cause foodborne illness. Student teams are tasked with identifying what ingredient in a restaurant's coleslaw recipe caused a foodborne outbreak. Each group is given ingredients to make coleslaw and an ultraviolet light to pinpoint the contaminated ingredient.
This 30 minute activity meets the Next Generation Science Standard.
Download the instructions
Zoonotic Scavenger Hunt
Audience: Middle School
This interactive word cipher is designed to acclimate students to zoonotic diseases and terminology.
Download the instructions
Solve the Outbreak
Audience: Middle School and High School
This CSI-style mobile and Web browser-based game has students piecing together clues and evidence about mysterious new disease outbreaks and making decisions about how to contain the unknown diseases. Each fictional outbreak is based on real-life cases and further develops and reinforces students' critical thinking skills while also presenting components of career exploration. The game was developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Play the game online or download it from iTunes or Google Play
Zoonotic Diseases Handout
Download a 10 page handout contains information on a multitude of zoonotic diseases, including vectors, transmission, effects on humans, statistics and more.