An Experiential Learning Activity on Infectious Disease Outbreaks at the Escuela de Agricultura y Ganadería of Bahía Blanca, Argentina
By Andrés Colubri —
For a version of this article in Spanish, please follow this link. Also, only a few days I posted it, I learned of the news of the terrible flood that devastated Bahía Blanca . Please consider donating to help the victims, the university, and local institutions in the city: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/support-bahia-blanca-argentina-flood-victims (for more information about this initiative, please read https://www.instagram.com/p/DG_fYHYydtc).
On October 4, 2024, we capped months of preparation with an experiential learning activity at the Escuela de Agricultura y Ganadería (EAyG) of the Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS) of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Alongside a group of approximately 20 fifth-year students, we conducted the second outbreak simulation in Argentina using the Operation Outbreak (OO) educational platform for infectious diseases. An initial pilot was conducted at the Escuela de Educación Secundaria Técnica N° 4 “Antártida” (EEST-IV), also of Bahía Blanca, in November 2023.
These initiatives have been taking place within the framework of a cooperation agreement between the UNS and the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan). The goal of this agreement is to promote academic exchange between the two institutions and develop joint research activities.
The team responsible for the activity included Iris Richmond, teaching assistant at EAyG, Zoe Boscardin, advanced student of the bachelor’s in Educational Sciences at UNS, Jessica Visotsky, professor of Education and Human Rights at UNS, and Andrés Colubri, professor in the Department of Genomics and Computational Biology at UMass Chan and co-founder of OO, along with colleagues and collaborators from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in 2018 (Colubri, Brown & Sabeti). Andrés is also an alumnus from UNS, where he graduated as a Doctor in Mathematics in 2002.
The data generated during this experience can be viewed interactively following this link.
What was the activity about?
Although the actual simulation lasted about an hour and a half, including a debriefing session at the end, the overall educational activity was developed in multiple stages over several months:
I — Preparatory phase: In June of last year, Andrés introduced the OO project to students and teachers at EAyG during a virtual presentation. In that occasion, students had the opportunity to install the OO app and familiarize themselves with it. Later, the teaching team guided the students through a Body-Territory workshop, where they reflected on their personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzed several documents from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) regarding human rights and health crises. As the simulation date approached, instructions were distributed to facilitators of the activity and students who had chosen to participate.
II — The simulation game: Using the OO app and a set of specialized web tools for data management, students actively participated in the spread and containment of a fictional infectious disease outbreak in the classroom. The transmission of the virtual pathogen occurred via Bluetooth signals from their phones, realistically replicating the airborne transmission of respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2.
Each student assumed a specific role (government officials, healthcare workers, contact tracers, scientists, journalists, general population, etc.) and had to make strategic decisions to avoid infection, investigate the pathogen, and contain the outbreak. The OO platform provided elements such as QR codes to access virtual vaccines and rapid diagnostic tests through the app, along with Outbreak Lookout (OL), a suite of web-based digital tools, developed by Fathom Information Design, that students could use to analyze data, manage resources, and make decisions.
III — Discussion of results: After the simulation, a group debriefing session was held where students analyzed the data, discussed the impact of their strategies, and reflected on real-world outbreak management challenges. They also provided feedback on how to improve the simulation based on their experiences.
What is Operation Outbreak (OO)?
OO started as an experiential educational game in a middle school in the state of Florida in the U.S., where students simulated infections using stickers. Over time, it evolved into an advanced digital platform with three key components, all available for free:
· Mobile app for iPhones and Android smartphones allowing students to experience real-time spread of a virtual pathogen.
· Curricular content that educators can tailor to the needs of their schools and students.
· Web tools for data visualization and strategy analysis after the simulation.
Thanks to incorporating mobile technology into the project, nearly 10,000 students in over 100 schools across the U.S., Argentina, and other countries have participated in OO to date. The project’s website (operationoutbreak.org) offers multiple resources, including simulation guidebooks, academic publications, media articles, and educational contents.
Impact on Education and Human Rights
Many researchers in education, technology, and pedagogy have highlighted that simulation-based learning is a powerful tool (Falloon 2019, Freeman et al. 2014) that helps students:
· Understand complex concepts through hands-on and participatory experiences.
· Develop critical skills, such as decision-making under pressure.
· Foster empathy and reflection by taking on different societal roles.
Our years of experience with OO reinforce these conclusions. Specifically, the multidisciplinary and human rights-based approach at EAyG created a space to discuss health equity and crisis response policies.
Final Reflection
The OO simulations in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, first at EEST-IV and then at EAyG, were more than just an academic pursuit— they represented an opportunity for students to actively engage in an outbreak response exercise at a societal level, applying their knowledge in an experiential way during a unique educational activity.
We believe that the simulation at EAyG in particular was a major success for several reasons. First, the technology platform functioned seamlessly, and students made full use of both the mobile app and Lookout tools. Second, we were able to incorporate a multidisciplinary, human rights-focused perspective into the discussion. Third, the student response was overwhelmingly positive, as we saw during the debriefing session. Finally, the activity was useful to confirm the effectiveness of short “immersive” OO simulations, lasting just over an hour, and with relatively small groups, with less than 25 students. These characteristics would make OO easy to incorporate into the classroom of different educational institutions.
In addition to the educational aspect, the project also has an important epidemiological research component. In this component, simulations can be used as behavioral experiments to understand the factors that influence the transmission of infectious diseases, as described in this publication and several scientific articles (Musa et al. 2024, Specht et al. 2022).
Moving forward, we aim to expand these initiatives, promoting a more interactive and inclusive education that is relevant to the realities of our society.
💡 If you are interested to bring this simulation to your school or institution, feel free to contact Andrés at andres.colubri@umassmed.edu or fill out the contact from OO at operationoutbreak.org/contact/ and join the project! 🚀
