A 360˚ View of COVID‐19: Multidisciplinary approach to teaching the science of the pandemic

Tsotakos, Nikolaos; Chihade, Joseph; Dal Gaizo‐Moore, Victoria; Provost, Joseph; Roecklein‐Canfield, Jennifer; Scheifele, Lisa; Wolyniak, Michael

In March 2020, institutions underwent a massive transition to distance learning as a result of the COVID19 pandemic. At the same time, the pandemic created an opportunity to teach biochemical and molecular biology concepts in the context of a topic with immediate global relevance, namely COVID19 and the virus that causes it. With little time to devise new materials to maximize learning in the new virtual environment, we set out to address this broad need by creating innovative, distance learning materials about the emerging COVID19 pandemic that are relevant, flexible, and timely, and available for dissemination to undergraduate faculty at diverse institutions. While highly disruptive, the pandemic also brought mainstream attention to a wide array of scientific concepts and provided an opportunity to educate students about the science of COVID19 through multidisciplinary approaches about science in real‐time. Approaching this from many different disciplines, such as virology, immunology, biochemistry, genetics, public health, pharmacology, systems biology, and synthetic biology, we have brought together lessons devised by the authors and present a series of 25 curriculum modules that can be used either collectively or in parts to provide students with a multidisciplinary look at the virus. These modules are designed for both virtual and in person teaching and engages students to answer their own curiosity about the disease that will define their generation.