Simfection provides a visual and interactive demonstration of the transmission of four infectious diseases caused by viruses, and the importance of vaccination. Simfection has been specifically designed to support the Biology GCE ‘A Level’ curriculum. The activity we provide focuses on a computer simulation whereby students may change the parameters of a disease outbreak (measles, mumps, smallpox or influenza) and watch how this affects the rate of transmission. It also illustrates the concepts of herd immunity and ring vaccination.
PowerPoint presentations are provided to give students background information about each infectious disease. We also provide a number of extension activities, which will allow students to consider ethical issues surrounding vaccination, and debate the pros and cons. The program also contains an interactive competitive element, where student teams work against one another to either increase or decrease the severity of an outbreak.
Simfection was produced by the Maths, Monsters and Microbiology public engagement team at Manchester Metropolitan University, with the support of the Society for Applied Microbiology.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
PowerPoint presentations are provided to give students background information about each infectious disease. We also provide a number of extension activities, which will allow students to consider ethical issues surrounding vaccination, and debate the pros and cons. The program also contains an interactive competitive element, where student teams work against one another to either increase or decrease the severity of an outbreak.
Simfection was produced by the Maths, Monsters and Microbiology public engagement team at Manchester Metropolitan University, with the support of the Society for Applied Microbiology.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
