While the COVID-19 pandemic has laid our face-to-face classes low, it has also provided

THE GREAT PANDEMIC PROJECT
While the COVID-19 pandemic has laid our face-to-face classes low, it has also provided a unique opportunity to take a look at how disease has altered the course of our nation, its leaders, and ourselves. Hopefully, we won’t ever get a chance to experience what being in the “belly of the Beast” is like again, but our situation offers a perfect opportunity to look at how historical study can be incredibly helpful in taking past situations and their lessons and using it to assess how to proceed with a current dilemma. The ongoing pandemic of today is not the first to shake the foundations of American society, or to challenge modern science. The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 killed over 600,000 Americans, and between 3 and 5 percent of the world’s population. Now’s the perfect time to do some personal deep thinking about it.
So, here’s the project;
1) You will view the Influenza 1918 video via the link in the “WATCH THIS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE VIDEO!” section of the kit. This is an excellent program that appeared on the PBS series The American Experience. It is a grim but fascinating look at one of the greatest medical holocausts in history.
2) You will then view the oral history interview with 1918 Pandemic survivor Edna Boone, someone who actually survived the BIG one and lived to tell about it.
3) After you have viewed the two videos, and in light of your experience with our current pandemic and your own historical efforts to understand the challenges of our current health crisis, your task is now to examine the two pandemics in a thoughtful, analytical essay