Activity: Data Scenarios

Background

A contagious virus has been reported in a village in Eastern Europe. The media has been quick to label the victims as "zombies" because of the similarities between their symptoms and science fiction TV shows. The virus quickly wipes out memory, reduces coordination, causes paranoid hallucinations, and deteriorates flesh. It spreads from person to person through saliva - most notably by being bitten by an infected person. While unsettling to witnesses and irreversible, infected individuals are only aggressive if approached. For now, those exhibiting symptoms have been quarantined and a vaccine is under development, but there is widespread global panic.

In the event that the virus escapes quarantine, governments are urging people to stay in their homes. This will prevent the social chaos of mass migration from large cities and slow the spread of the disease between regions. It will also allow government and aid organizations to keep key transportation routes open in order to move critical medical and food supplies. The World Health Organization is confident that it will produce a vaccine in the next 3-4 months.

Your Mission

You are part of a group that is assessing how prepared your neighborhood can temporarily withstand a zombie outbreak. Your report and maps will be used to find points of weakness and to identify locations for emergency shelters and food stockpiles.

One of your neighbors is an expert in infectious disease. She sent you some spatial data about the neighborhood that she feels will be very helpful in devising a plan to protect you and other neighbors from harm. Unfortunately, she can no longer be contacted. All you have is an unfinished map and a table of the underlying data.

You probably have enough time to collect a bit more data or fill in a few gaps in your knowledge about these data, but you must act fast! In this activity, you will work with a group of neighbors to assess these data and determine what else you need to know.

Part 1: Examine the map and data

Look at the map and an excerpt of the spreadsheet of its underlying data. All you know is that it is a map of properties for your neighborhood.

Unfinished map of the neighborhood from your neighbor.

Underlying data used to make the neighborhood map

Part 2: Work with your group to answer four questions

You can only communicate with your neighbors (your other group members) by posting to a Moodle forum because you are under quarantine. Working online with this group, consider key questions that you need answered about the data before using it to come up with a way to defend your neighborhood from the zombie outbreak.

1. What are these data?

2. What questions or concerns do you have about the map and underlying data that your neighbor has given you?

3. Which additional pieces of data do you need to complete an effective zombie risk assessment report?

4. Why is this additional data helpful for assessing the risk from zombies or the capacity of the neighborhood to resist the outbreak?

Guidelines for working as a group

• Each group member must post an answer to one question. Copy and paste the question you are answering into the forum before answering it so that your group understands which question you are answering.

• Each member must also post at least one response to other group member's post.

• Make sure that you are contributing unique ideas rather than duplicating suggestions already raised by other group members.

• Your group must answer all three questions.

• You will receive 3 points for your own post and 2 points for your response to another group member's post.

• Post to this forum between 900a on Monday and 500p on Tuesday. After that time, the forum will be closed. There are no right or wrong answers. Each individual will receive participation points for this activity if they complete all of the requirements and contribute to the group discussion.