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This problem belongs to the Contagious Maths: Understanding the Spread of Infectious Diseases collection. It follows on from Build Your First Model, Lucky Dip and Everybody is Different.
In this video clip, Julia points out that disease modellers need to consider how diseases spread across different communities when people move around.
The interactivity below enables us to simulate the outbreak of an infectious disease when populations are mobile.
The key is the same as before: circles represent different people who are susceptible to infection. The colours represent different numbers of nearby people that they could go on to infect (also given by the number displayed on the icons):
And different shapes represent people who are infected, recovered or immunised:
Can you anticipate what will happen?
You can change the setting by clicking the purple cog, selecting a layout, and then clicking one of the two buttons at the bottom of the settings.
Party - separate households all converge in a large central space and mix heavily.
Visitors - some members of some households move about in a large common area.
Commute - household members travel to a central space and return back afterwards.
Mixed - most household members travel to a central space and return back afterwards.
When the model has finished, use the Graph button to view a graph of the whole infection from start to finish.
Is it similar to the shape of the graphs in Lucky Dip?
This concludes Part 4. Please continue to Wrap up and Meet the Researchers.
In the "Teachers' Resources" section you will find suggestions as to how this material might be used in the classroom.
This is the last of four parts, designed to be used in a sequence of lessons - here is a lesson by lesson breakdown.
These Contagious Maths resources were developed and written by Julia Gog and the MMP team, including both NRICH and Plus, and funded by the Royal Society’s Rosalind Franklin Award 2020. We have tailored these resources for ages 11-14 on NRICH, and for older students and wider audiences on Plus.