The 2014 Ebola outbreak triggered a flood of misinformation that worried students and parents alike.
“Students were very concerned about the outbreak and the treatment center here,” says Kim Hansen in Omaha, Neb. She is a social studies teacher there at Christ the King Catholic School. At the time, local medical experts were treating U.S. Ebola cases, bringing the epidemic close to home.
“Some [students] were irrational about it and feared everyone in Omaha would die,” Hansen recalls. So she took time out of class to look up statistics with her students. Together, they learned that “the possibility of an outbreak happening here was minimal.” Arming her students with that information helped to allay some of their fear, she says.
It’s a common situation in classrooms: Students come in with concerns about events they have heard about on the news or online. Among teachers, many — if not most — feel compelled to find a way to address those concerns, even when the topic doesn't fit into the curriculum.
see more at: https://student.societyforscience.org/article/teachers-make-time-ebola-and-other-current-events
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