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Black Death Activities

Melissa Nowotarski

Looking for a great little activity for the Black Death? Try the Contagion Activity 

I took a set of role cards from a different version of this game that I had used so the number of peasants is much higher.  You can access those cards here: https://brownsburgk12in-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/mnowotarski_brownsburg_k12_in_us/EYKESBN1AH9Nuz7SoyfRm1EBOd9wW9gUxH4EbaqgkAZYqw?e=Jr85iC

The only other modification I made was that peasants got 3 playing cards, merchants got 5, and nobles got 10.  Then, we could talk about how wealth is easier to get when you start with wealth. 

The students loved it when I called out Patient Zero! Its a great little activity that doesn't take too much time, but its a good payout on student engagement.

What other activities do you love to use with the Black Death? 

  • I absolutely love the Contagion activity! 

    Over the years, I'd run various plague activities, and this one is by far my favorite -- it really keeps the learning objectives in focus for the student hands-on and reflection portions. Love it.

    And your mod   to have different social classes begin with different amounts of cards / wealth -- fantastic! 

  • in reply to Gwen Duralek

    I agree .  I thought this activity was much tighter in focus and ease of use than the previous activity that I had used.

  • in reply to Melissa Nowotarski

     , I love the Contagion activity! Your timing is perfect. This article on the Black Death was just re-released today. Melissa Greene provides some really good information on the spread of the plague and how they were able to track the origins. Your students may be interested in her findings.

  •  great timing - we just did the Contagion activity! It was so fun - I love getting students up and moving while learning essential content. Here's the slide deck I used. I opened the lesson with the cheesy music video (a total earworm!) and closed with the Mankind video clip starting at the 12:30 mark, followed by an apology for grossing out students so soon after lunch Grimacing

  • Dear  

    Thanks so much for your post. This is my first year teaching WHP AP and many of my students have said they don't like doing these types of activities or simulations. I am somewhat surprised and have to make adjustments considering this is one of my strengths as an educator. I am wondering if your students have voiced similar concerns or if I just happen to have students who prefer different learning methods this year?

  • in reply to Jeffrey Boles

    It really just depends on the students.  My AP students typically enjoy this type of activity because they are usually hypercompetitive.  Regular world is sometimes a crap shoot, and depending on the maturity, I don't always do these types of activities with them.

  • in reply to Anne Koschmider

    Yep, that was the activity that I used to use.  I like the simplified version in the OER Contagion activity.  It still gets the point across but my students were able to handle it better.

    Love the Mankind video clip.  I totally forgot about that series! My students love the fleas on rats.  That's the only thing that they apparently remember from studying this in sixth grade.

  • in reply to Melissa Nowotarski

    Thanks so much. I am always having conversations with my students in AP and how they to receive content. They have been pretty clear they prefer to learn lecture-based while my general ed always prefer hands on learning activities like this. Really appreciate yor input. 

  • I've been a long-time user of various forms of simulations demonstrating the spread of the plague - these are always memorable for students!

    While the prior version of the Contagion! activity did a great job of demonstrating how disease spread through trade, it did sometimes lead to students avoiding the plague (joker cards) with nefarious tactics. I like how the new revision (called What Are You Trading?) maintains the element of surprise to show that the spread of disease was unintentional. Has anyone tried the newly revised version? If so, what did you think?