Unit 3.2 to 3.3: Medical surge, mobile response facility, public-health communication, app design concept.
Your PLTW coursework: Principles of Biomedical Science ▸ Unit 3: Outbreaks and Emergencies ▸ Lesson 3.3 Information Sharing ▸ "Activity 3.3.1 User-centered Design", "Problem 3.3.2 Public Health Emergency Apps"
What to do if absent- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Week overview - Medical Surge: mobile care and a public-health communication app
Design a concept for a mobile response facility and a public-health communication app that supports , surveillance, and clear messaging.
- 1Define and , then explain why a surge can overwhelm a hospital.
- 2Sketch a facility and label where patients are received, treated, and discharged.
- 3List the surveillance data your facility must collect to track the event.
- 4Draft the core screens of a communication app that shares public-health updates with the community.
- 5Apply one usability principle to make the app easy to read under stress.
- 6Write two sentences explaining how your design increases .
- • You will be able to explain and why it matters in a crisis.
- • You will be able to design a mobile-care and surveillance concept.
- • You will be able to apply a usability principle to public-health communication, meaning a clear message or tool that helps a community understand and act on health guidance during a crisis.
Daily lessons this week
Open any day for its full lesson, the work due that day, and guided notes.
One sentence recording the strongest opposing argument heard during the surge resource debate.
Annotated notes listing three usability principles with health-app examples, a sketch connecting user needs to a feature list, and one trust-building communication strategy.
Team deliverable: two user personas, a prioritized feature list, a low-fidelity wireframe of two screens, and a written usability check plan with one stated limitation.
CER with a specific design-claim, persona and feature-list evidence, reasoning linking choices to usability principles, a communication improvement prediction, and design assumptions and limitations.
Updated project tracker with surge-unit status, confidence rating on usability and surge response, and one reflective note, linked to the five-artifact evidence package.
Quick intro to the week
- Hook: when a disaster fills every hospital bed, good design is what keeps care flowing.
- Today's goal: sketch a mobile facility and a clear app that help a community handle a surge.
- Monday bioethics debate ties in: during a surge, who decides which patients a stretched system can treat?
- Reminder: your graded surge facility and app concept are submitted on the class site.
Your PLTW coursework this week
Do this: Advance your PLTW PBS public-health benchmark by completing the medical-surge facility and communication-app concept in the online course shell.
- • is a system's ability to handle a sudden rise in patients.
- • Public-health surveillance tracks an event so officials can respond in time.
- • Design a mobile-care and surveillance concept for a surge.
- • Apply a usability principle to make public-health messaging clear.
📋 PLTW evidence due: the completed mobile-surge facility and communication-app concept in the course shell.
All PLTW activities are completed inside the PLTW course environment: this page only gives direction.
This week's PLTW tracker
Your week at a glance. Check off each deliverable as you finish it, then submit so Mr. Mendoza can see how the class is pacing.
Use the code Mr. Mendoza gave you, not your name. Saved on this device.
| Day | Date | Focus | Key deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | Tue, Dec 1 | Surge resource debate | One sentence recording the strongest opposing argument heard during the surge resource debate. |
| Wednesday | Wed, Dec 2 | Surge and usability notes | Annotated notes listing three usability principles with health-app examples, a sketch connecting user needs to a feature list, and one trust-building communication strategy. |
| Friday | Fri, Dec 4 | Public-health design project | Team deliverable: two user personas, a prioritized feature list, a low-fidelity wireframe of two screens, and a written usability check plan with one stated limitation. |
| Monday | Mon, Dec 7 | Design justification CER | CER with a specific design-claim, persona and feature-list evidence, reasoning linking choices to usability principles, a communication improvement prediction, and design assumptions and limitations. |
| Friday | - | Submit tracker and evidence | Updated project tracker with surge-unit status, confidence rating on usability and surge response, and one reflective note, linked to the five-artifact evidence package. |
- M: Philosophy for Kids / John Carroll bioethical debate
- T: teacher background notes + PLTW launch task
- W: lab / data or model work
- Th: analysis / CER or design revision
- F: submit tracker + weekly evidence
Due by week's end: Surge/mobile response design.
3 panels from the illustrated semester.
Fiction. There is no such student. The lessons, labs and dates are the real planned course; the student, the classmates and the conversations are invented.
What to do when absent
Most days, this class is your PLTW coursework: and PLTW is online and individual. So being out usually just means doing exactly what we did in class, from home.
Open Clever, then myPLTWHow to get there: open Clever and sign in with your Microsoft (district) account. Both myPLTW and Schoology are in Clever. Do the activity in myPLTW. Turn the work in on this site or hand it to Mr. Mendoza, because that is the step that counts as submitted. Schoology only shows your report-card grade later.
You can't do those from home: do this instead: Teacher-posted data/model packet, same objective. Supplemental: CDC Solve the Outbreak; NN/g UX design basics.
Class still runs. A substitute will post today's plan: complete the online activity above; it's built to be self-guided. Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
Ready.gov: pandemic and large-scale health emergenciesVocabulary
Resources & readings
Hand-picked readings and interactives for this lesson, from authoritative open organizations and PLTW's own public course outline.