Students investigate bird flu as a complex system by studying what it is, how it spreads through populations, common symptoms, and how prevention and safety measures can change an outbreak. They use game design to build and test a simple model that shows inputs, interactions, and outcomes within a flock, while recognizing that models only capture part of what happens in real life. Through collaborative design, playtesting, revision, and public sharing, students strengthen systems thinking, communication, problem solving, and scientific understanding.

Students will explain what bird flu is, describe key symptoms, prevention and safety measures, and show how diseases spread through populations within interacting systems. They will use and critique models by designing a strategy board game and rulebook that represent inputs, processes, outputs, and changing conditions in an outbreak, while also identifying where the model simplifies real events. Students will collaborate through playtesting and shared decision-making, communicate their scientific reasoning to peers and visitors, and use rose-bud-thorn feedback to revise their game. They will apply critical thinking and self-direction to test how prevention choices change outbreak outcomes and improve the accuracy and clarity of their final product.

Students will create a strategy board game that models how bird flu spreads through a flock, using movement, chance, and prevention choices to show how an outbreak changes over time. Throughout the week, teams will also produce a draft game map, infection and prevention cards, a playtesting log, and short scientific explanations that connect their game rules to symptoms, transmission, prevention, and limits of the model. By the end, each team will complete a polished game set with board, tokens, cards, and a rulebook that explains how each choice affects the outbreak and where the model simplifies real bird flu systems. Students will also prepare a brief presentation pitch for the showcase so visitors can understand the science behind the game and test different outbreak outcomes.

Kick off with a Model Matters Mixer: students rotate through a fast bird-flu spread simulation, a short hands-on mini-lesson on what bird flu is and how symptoms, transmission, and prevention work, and a sample game critique station inspired by outbreak-style games. In teams, they track how the “disease” moves through a flock, test prevention moves, and notice which parts of a real outbreak the model shows well or leaves out. End with a whole-group debrief around the question, “How well can a simple model represent what really happens during a bird flu outbreak?” and have teams sketch first ideas for a board game that includes spread tokens, prevention cards, and choices that change outcomes.

Host a “Spread or Stop It Showcase” where teams turn the room into a Virus Boardwalk of game tables for visiting peers, teachers, and families. Each team presents its board game, gives a short pitch about how bird flu spreads, symptoms, prevention, and safety, then invites guests to play and see how prevention choices change the outbreak. Students display their rulebook and a brief explanation of how their model represents the system, including what it leaves out or simplifies. Build in a feedback station where visitors leave one rose, one bud, and one thorn so teams can reflect on their communication, collaboration, and scientific thinking.