I created this project as a way for my 6th graders to practice their statistical skills. They loved it! They get to pretend to be epidemiologists studying a virus outbreak that is turning people into zombies. It’s a fantastic way for students to see how statistics is used in the “real world” – they were also very interested to learn about the field of epidemiology.

The Project: Students pretend to be epidemiologists investigating a zombie outbreak occurring in the United States. Students apply their statistical skills to determine:

• Where the virus is originating
• Which patients are likely to become zombie
• Which symptoms are most common

Students practice:

-creating dot plots and bar graphs
-describing the distribution of data
-determining the mean and mode
-evaluating the usefulness of the measure of central tendency based on the data’s distribution

Here is a link to all of the materials you need in powerpoint/google slides format, including the answer key which was made by Friederike Kolbe, a teacher who used this activity with her class. Here is the original version. No answer key, but it’s almost identical!

 Printing:

• Print pg 3-8 for each student.
• Print a set of data for each student or each pair of students:

• Print BOTH maps for each student or each pair of students. (The maps will help students figure out which region each state belongs in.)

Tips:

• Start by explaining what epidemiologists do (get the kids to say the word aloud a few times!)
• Dramatically introduce the Virus X Outbreak.Explain that the students are going to be epidemiologists investigating the outbreak
• Introduce all of the materials: it’s helpful for kids to have access to highlighters
• Tell them the CDC is counting on them