During the 2019\u201320 school year, Ms. Lee taught 8th grade integrated science at a public middle school located in a small city in West Virginia. Early in the school year, as part of her usual curriculum, her class learned about characteristics of viruses. Therefore, when COVID became a concern, Ms. Lee was able to draw on her students\u2019 prior knowledge of viruses when discussing this new disease. She also expanded upon her previous instruction by focusing on ways to prevent the spread of viruses. In her words:<\/p>\n
We did some demonstrations, just very simple demonstrations, on how it has been shown that [COVID] is dependent on respiratory droplets, just how much does come out when you\u2019re talking. Then, especially if you\u2019re coughing or sneezing and you don\u2019t do anything to prevent it, like sneeze into your elbow, or then, of course, wearing a mask. But where I live, we were not under a mask mandate quite as early as the rest of the country, just simply because we were one of the last states to even have a case. But it was still discussed, and they still understood the ramifications and how viruses can spread, like cold viruses and flu viruses, and why it was important. And so the activities were mainly just about personal hygiene and how to prevent spreading any kind of germs.<\/em><\/p>\n However, Ms. Lee noted the difficulty of teaching about COVID when information about the disease was constantly changing:<\/p>\n We had discussions about the information that was coming out. So I didn\u2019t speak specifically. And I told them I wasn\u2019t going to give them any definite information on COVID-19 because it changed daily. . . . I didn\u2019t want to provide them with information that I wasn\u2019t confident in. . . . And it was a good lesson in the nature of science, how science can change very rapidly. Because with new information and new discoveries, you get different ideas.<\/em><\/p>\n As a result, Ms. Lee indicated that she tended to draw on only a few trusted sources when looking for information about COVID, including the CDC, John\u2019s Hopkins University, and the National Science Teaching Association:<\/p>\n I did refer to the CDC, Johns Hopkins, the National Science Teaching Association, because they have a lot of really good up-to-date information that was timely. So those are the main things. I mean, if I Googled something, I read it pretty thoroughly because you can never tell what you\u2019re going to get. . . . So that\u2019s pretty much the resources that I used, ones that I felt were reputable and that I trusted and have used in the past.<\/em><\/p>\n When her school building closed in March of 2020, Ms. Lee continued to address COVID in her classroom instruction, with a particular focus on the impact of the virus on her students\u2019 daily lives:<\/p>\n Of course everything was so unorganized and just caught everyone by surprise that our [class] organization and meetings that we had were kind of sporadic. But when we did have them again, it\u2019s kind of like the main topic of the day. How the quarantine was affecting everybody and everything in our lives that there would be again, kind of like an update and, you know, what are the latest questions about it.<\/em><\/p>\n However, consistent with her in-person instruction, Ms. Lee was cautious about the information she presented due to the rapidly changing body of knowledge around COVID:<\/p>\n So I didn\u2019t really structure a lesson because, again, I didn\u2019t feel comfortable with presenting information that I didn\u2019t know was 100 percent. Not that anything in science is ever 100 percent, but I didn\u2019t want to give misleading information. They did learn to understand how quickly the information can change, so if anything, one of the best things that they did understand was the nature of science.<\/em><\/p>\n\n