Educational Level:

Roadmap Objectives:

• • Article: An Emerging Disease Causes Regional Population Collapse of a Common North American Bat Species Science 6 August 2010: Vol. 329 no. 5992 pp. 679-682 DOI: 10.1126/science.1188594
  • Content area/major concepts: Chosen because it is a simple paper that defines a fungal disease, shows bats in a positive light, shows that population extinction of a common animal is very real, shows a mystery science is still trying to solve
    
    what is a fungus, free energy transfer through a system, disease spread through a population, probability, statistical modeling
  • Methods or technology used to obtain data: population counting, modeling growth/extinction
  • How the CREATE strategy was used: Have students do a quick concept map on what they know about bats (hoping these will come out mostly negative, and that by the end of this students will love bats and be embarrassed of these misconceptions). Re-write the title of the article. Take the first page of the article and have the students identify 5 words they do not know. The first paragraph of the paper can be used for concept mapping as it discusses similar disease/population declines in other animal species. Or maybe a cartoon depicting the different animals and their disease? The point is to emphasize that different diseases in different species have led to the same endpoint and sometimes even extinction. Figure 2 can be used for further discussions. What geographical locations is the disease trending with? Why is this the case? Where will the disease most likely spread to next? How do you think this disease is spreading among bats? Will closing caves to humans stop the spread of this disease? The statistics for this paper are complex, but not impossible to work with if students have a background. The conclusion of the statistics can be presented to the students without the figures. Basically, bats will be extinct in 16 years unless the disease is stopped/cured/prevented. This is a great point to have students predict the next experiments or what further information is needed for conservation efforts. End the paper with students predicting scenarios of what happens when bats become extinct, which will be a lead into the second paper.
  • Biggest teaching challenge: statistics data is challenging without a stats background
• • Article: Economic importance of bats in agriculture Science 1 April 2011: Vol. 332 no. 6025 pp. 41-42 DOI: 10.1126/science.1201366
  • Content area/major concepts: Chosen because it takes the population decline shown in the previous paper and places it into a much larger context as well as relates the issue to students’ lives.
    
    how economics and agriculture are integrated into a seemingly unrelated disease specific to bats.
  • Methods or technology used to obtain data: none, really. This is a perspective on how agriculture will be impacted if bats become extinct
  • How the CREATE strategy was used: Compare Figure 2 from paper 1 and the figure presented in this perspective: Can you plot data from both maps on a single graph? How do these maps overlap? What connections can you draw between WNS in bats and the economics of bats? Compare the amount of loss predicted by declining bat population (3.7 billion/year) and the value of bats to the agricultural industry (~30 billion/year) to the annual NIH research budget (~30 billion/year)… (the connection to NIH is a lead into the 3rd paper…how animal research can translate into human research). How do these numbers compare? Should these numbers be compared? How do these numbers influence each other? How do these numbers compare to energy savings from using wind power? What would do if you were in charge of scientific research budgets?
  • Biggest teaching challenge: no figures and no real data are presented.
• • Article: Pathology in euthermic bats with white nose syndrome suggests a natural manifestation of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. Virulence Volume 3, Issue 7 November 15, 2012 Pages 583 - 588
  • Content area/major concepts: Chosen because it shows how research on a bat fungus (which might seem unnecessary to some) is actually helping us solve human disease as well.
    
    immune signaling pathways, how a fungus can cause disease, how disease can spread
    
  • Methods or technology used to obtain data: histology, signaling pathways
  • How the CREATE strategy was used: The abstract works great with the paper. Give students only the part that reads: IRIS was first described in HIV-infected humans with low helper T lymphocyte counts and bacterial or fungal opportunistic infections. IRIS is a paradoxical and rapid worsening of symptoms in immune compromised humans upon restoration of immunity in the face of an ongoing infectious process. In humans with HIV, the restoration of adaptive immunity following suppression of HIV replication with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) can trigger severe immune-mediated tissue damage that can result in death. Have the students concept map this section of the abstract so they understand what IRIS is. Now, give the students the selected abstract text above, but with the preceding and final sentence: We hypothesize that the sudden reversal of immune suppression in bats upon the return to euthermia leads to a form of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS). IRIS was first described in HIV-infected humans with low helper T lymphocyte counts and bacterial or fungal opportunistic infections. IRIS is a paradoxical and rapid worsening of symptoms in immune compromised humans upon restoration of immunity in the face of an ongoing infectious process. In humans with HIV, the restoration of adaptive immunity following suppression of HIV replication with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) can trigger severe immune-mediated tissue damage that can result in death. We propose that the sudden restoration of immune responses in bats infected with G. destructans results in an IRIS-like dysregulated immune response that causes the post-emergent pathology. This is where this paper can tie in from the final research budget question asked with paper 2. Introduce to students the idea that research from one seemingly unrelated area can ultimately influence/affect research on human disease. Turn to page 3 of the article, under the heading “Role of Immunopathology in WNS” Have students translate the first sentence “If natural immune suppression during hibernation is a key aspect of the lack of resistance of bats to WNS, then the return to euthermia and the reestablishment of immunocompetence should allow bats to mount effective immune responses that clear the infection.” Ask students why they think this is not happening in bats. How do they think this connects to IRIS? You can then present the rest of the text of this section to students to validate/argue with their own proposals. Next, give students the text from the section titled “WNS as a form of IRIS” and ask them to concept map the similarities/differences. Have a grant panel with the students on ideas of where scientists should take these studies next.
  • Biggest teaching challenge: not really a research paper, it only presents a hypothesis and does not test it.

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