Coronavirus (COVID-19) - Innovation Challenge

On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.” One day later, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar declared a public health emergency for the United States to aid the nation’s healthcare community in responding to COVID-19. Healthcare agencies, governments, and schools are busy preparing for a scenario where outbreak spreads and impacts daily life.  In other parts of the world, this is already having an impact on schools.  For example, schools in Japan are closed to contain the virus.  In the United States, we are encouraged to be prepared in case schools have to close.

For the moment, we are being encouraged to practice good hand hygiene to prevent the spread of disease.  Here’s the thing, several studies show that students have low hand hygiene compliance (10-50%). If our frontline of defense is the prevention of spread, then we need to increase handwashing in schools.  What if, challenged secondary students to design innovative solutions that resulted in increased handwashing compliance? I designed a Classroom Innovation Challenge focused on increasing handwashing behavior.  Download the challenge here.

Ideas on how to use this challenge:

• Extra-curricular challenge for students participating in a club. 

• Project for a STEM or science class.

• Create a competition judged by designers, teachers, and public health professionals.  Give student teams a couple of weeks to design and test a prototype for increasing handwashing compliance.  End with a product pitch. 

The people closest to the problem (lack of handwashing) often have the best understanding of why the problem exists.  Further, these same people often design the best solutions.  Empower students to lead the way!