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Future scientists get head start on stopping pandemics in school course

A group of students at ASMSA were already studying past pandemics when the novel coronavirus turned their high school course into a real-time lesson.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — The future geniuses churned out by the elite Arkansas School for Math Science and the Arts in Hot Springs were already studying past pandemics when the novel coronavirus turned their high school course into a real-time lesson.

"They are interested. They are engaged. They always come with new questions. They are a joy to teach," said Dr. Whitney Holden, a microbiologist and one of the teachers of the Infectious Disease course at ASMSA. "We've been talking about it even before it came to the United States," she said.

Dr. Holden works with historian Ron Luckow on the interdisciplinary course that peers into past pandemics and their effect on society. About a dozen students signed up at the start of the year. It has since been merged with another life sciences course. The idea was to offer lessons on what to do in the future, but who knew the future would get here so fast?

"It's kind of surreal now to really be in it," said Dr. Holden. "To be wearing masks. To be self-isolating. To be working from home."

Now that the class is taking place at home, the kids have become resources to their families. Busting myths became a homework assignment with students asked to find a conspiracy theory online to analyze.

"It helps their families understand what's real and what's just kind of been put out there by other people trying to create some drama," Dr. Holden said.

The class has to be sensitive to the times, with a few students personally affected and some with a connection to a person who died from the virus. But as you might expect from high achievers, the teens at ASMSA have anxieties that are less about the global threat for now.

"I don't notice too much from my students in terms of anxiety or stress," Dr. Holden said. "Actually, I think that they're more worried about getting all of their homework and assignments done."

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