Teacher Resources
Virus Essentials
Review the basics of viruses: what they are, how they work, and how they infect a host.
Nat Geo for Kids teaches some virus basic information for kids.
Resources from PBS Learning Media
Virus Information and Protection is a collection of interactives, videos, discussion questions, and media clips for grades K-5 and 6-12. Teacher support materials are included.
Learn some Healthy Habits about coughs and sneezes with this information from PBS Learning Media.
Influenza 1918, a film from the PBS series American Experience, includes articles, a timeline, and a Teacher's Guide.
Scientists are Helpers explains the history and science of vaccines and how they help us.
Spillover: Zika, Ebola, and Beyond is a fascinating collection exploring viral diseases that "spill over" from animals to humans. It begins with "What Are Viruses?" and moves through origins, transmission, epidemic, and contact tracing. For middle school and up.
COVID-19: Several resources, with accompanying teacher support materials, are designed to help you explain the coronavirus pandemic.
- For primary students:
- The coronavirus collection for grades K-2 focuses on community helpers, ways to be a "germ buster," and basic understanding of viruses.
- The FBI (Federal Bureau of Ick) recruits kids to help fight the virus.
Lesson Plans and More
Meet the Germs, a standards-aligned complete lesson plan for grades 3-5, investigates the difference between viruses and bacteria.
Arizona State University has some great classrooms resources for upper-elementary teachers. Let the Germs Begin and Puzzling Pathogens are engaging, student-friendly pages, and the accompanying teacher's guide has a complete lesson plan, experiments, and slideshows.
Sid the Science Kid helps younger students understand more about germs and how they travel. This includes videos and lesson plans for your classroom.
At the same ASU site, check out Viruses and Viral Attack, a comic book story on the immune system. The accompanying teacher's guide has suggestions for using Viral Attack in the classroom.
Kids Health has teachers' guides with lessons and activities to help students learn about the viral transmission of colds and flu. Check out the guides for grades K-2, grades 3-5, and grades 6-8.
Baylor University's K8 Science Resources offers 12 lessons for middle school students on all kinds of microbes, including a lesson on microbe-caused illness and an infectious disease case study where students assume the scientist's role.
Outbreak! Investigating Epidemics and Pathogens and our Defenses are hands-on lesson plans for grades 5 and up from the American Society for Microbiology.
Educator Resources
The Amoeba Sisters explain scientific concepts in a fun, entertaining way. Check out their animated videos on viruses and the immune system. For grades 5 and up.
The Exploratorium has a collection of engaging, hands-on classroom activities to help students learn about viruses. Included are: "What Does A Vaccine Do?" "How Does Soap Inactivate Viruses?" "How Do Viruses Reproduce?" and many more.
LiveScience has a colorful, kid-friendly COVID-19 infographic on COVID-19 for you to share your students. Also, check out the Ultimate Kids Guide to the Coronavirus.
News of the coronavirus epidemic has many applications to math and literacy, as well as science. See how some middle school teachers have developed lessons for their classes.
How Lou Got the Flu from the American Museum of Natural History is a fun, visual explanation of how a virus can travel all around the world to infect someone in your own neighborhood.
What are viruses? This simple video for grades 3-4 is designed to help students understand what they are, how they spread, and how vaccines work to fight them.
Viruses: The Smallest Microbe On Earth includes facts, infographics, and an animation of a talking virus.
Find handy, easily understood definitions for virus vocabulary.
How are bacteria different from viruses? Grow your own bacteria in this classroom experiment from Science Kids.