This site discusses the possible relationship between a virus and Lou Gehrig's Disease. It has photos, illustrations and links to other resource information.

Student teams practice water quality analysis through turbidity measurement and coliform bacteria counts. They use information about water treatment processes to design prototype small-scale water treatment systems and test the influent (incoming) and effluent (outgoing) water to assess how well their prototypes produce safe water to prevent water-borne illnesses.

Zika, unlike Ebola, is less commonly spread by human-to-human contact. Instead, mosquitos are the root cause. Brazil has recently implemented mosquito controls to prevent the transmission of several viral diseases, including Zika. As the world's population grows and spreads geographically, human interaction with new wildlife opens up greater opportunity for zoonotic disease to spread. [3:33]

Students simulate the spread of a virus such as HIV through a population by "sharing" (but not drinking) the water in a plastic cup with several classmates. Although invisible, the water in a few of the cups has already be tainted with the "virus" (sodium carbonate). After all the students have shared their liquids, the contents of the cups are tested for the virus with phenolphthalein, a chemical that causes a striking color change in the presence of sodium carbonate. Students then set about trying to determine which of their classmates were the ones originally infected with the virus.

A brief overview of viruses from the University of California. Discusses the difference between the lysogenic phase and the lytic phase, gives examples of viral diseases, and provides information on the relationship between viruses and mass extinction. Diagrams are also provided.

Students learn how viruses invade host cells and hijack the hosts' cell-reproduction mechanisms in order to make new viruses, which can in turn attack additional host cells. Students also learn how the immune system responds to a viral invasion, eventually defeating the viruses -- if all goes well. Finally, they consider the special case of HIV, in which the virus' host cell is a key component of the immune system itself, severely crippling it and ultimately leading to AIDS. The associated activity, Tracking a Virus, sets the stage for this lesson with a dramatic simulation that allows students to see for themselves how quickly a virus can spread through a population, and then challenges students to determine who the initial bearers of the virus were.