CA – Pandemic

Classroom Activitiy: Pandemic

This box presents an application area of AI systems. Research and science are working on using AI systems for the targeted prediction of pandemics. Students can try out for themselves which factors can be included and how they can be evaluated and thus take on the role of the AI system.

This learning box imitates fictionally and in a very simplified way the work of AI systems that are supposed to predict epidemics or pandemics. For this purpose, the working methods of international AI projects were linked to a map of Africa that the US Department of Defence created in 2020, based on the central factors triggering Covid 19. The students analyse the various factors and thus predict the outbreak of a new pandemic. They recognise that the factors can only be collected to a limited extent and that a sufficient number of factors is necessary for a prediction.

The activity can be used in the area of ‘Ethics and society’ or ‘Fields of application’. The students work in pairs or in small groups and evaluate the individual factors. Depending on the evaluation, suitable coins are distributed to the countries. The prediction of a pandemic outbreak is based on the number of coins.

This material is out of KIKi-Box 12: