"I had them go out and ... make note of how the campus is responding to this and how individuals are taking steps to prevent the spread of the disease or to promote good health," she said.
Johnson's students, along with several others from the ISU Health, Safety, and Environmental Health Science Department, were thrown into the H1N1 frenzy Thursday when they answered students' questions at the Library Extravaganza at Cunningham Memorial Library.
Earnest Davis, 21, of Indianapolis and a senior public health major, said he spent most of his time at the event relaying very basic information about how to prevent the spread of illness. Because answering questions about disease and educating the public about prevention is the focus of Johnson's class, Davis believes it was a valuable use of his time.
"This is affecting us now," he said. "It doesn't get more relevant than this."
Andrea Cloe, 22 of Highland and a nursing major, said what she is doing for Johnson's class directly coincides with the work she's undertaking in her internship with the American Red Cross.
"I've been going into schools and teaching elementary kids about how germs are spread," Cloe said. "That's the same thing we're doing here."
What happens at the end of the semester after Johnson's students have finished collecting the data from their campus classroom remains to be seen.
"The tricky part is determining what to do with information they find," she said. "It would be easy to play it safe and have them present their findings in class. But I'd like for them to be able to do more than that."
Not knowing how the H1N1 virus will impact ISU leaves Johnson a bit uncomfortable, particularly now that she has revised her curriculum. She's uncertain what to put
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