Here are some fresh Coronavirus STEM problems for you, in order of difficulty.
Problem 1. 4-digit subtraction word problem. You can increase the difficulty of this and choose to make this more of a science/language arts project by a. having the students find the data online themselves or reading the article without having the data component pointed out to them.
In the latest article from Crains, the following data is available. “As of today, 63 percent of the 2,589 intensive care unit beds in hospitals across Illinois were occupied, as were 59 percent of medical/surgical beds and 32 percent of ventilators, which are used to help patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms breathe, according to data from the state’s Department of Public Health. The state has slightly increased its capacity of beds and ventilators since March 16, when 73 percent of the 2,578 ICU beds and 40 percent of the 2,144 ventilators were in use.“
Use the previous Crains article for this data.
By how how many units did the state increase ICU and Ventilator Capacity in Illinois in the last week?
Problem 2. Multiplication/percentage problem: Same as above for data, but with a % increase.
Problem 3. For students with more skills, same as above, but use our previously posted data under this category to update the chart to see how many days it will be before the state will run out of these two resources given any available rate for ICU and ventilator use.
Problem 4. Building on problem 3, by how much will we be short of scarce resources by March 30 and April 6? You can find rates of ICU, Ventilator and Hospital Bed use in our previous post article links. Now, compare this data to the latest Governor update, and write a sentence about your findings.
Problem 5. Using the data on the City of Chicago Web site, compare the rate of hospitalization for coronavirus to the rate of hospitalization globally. What do you notice about the rate of hospitalization in Chicago, vs. in China, or the world, etc? Why do you think the numbers are same/different? Use the previously posted articles and sources if needed, and here’s another good source of data. Use the hospitalization rate in Chicago (pls note that more people will be hospitalized for coronavirus but not counted in the hospitalization number because only some of those people are tested, so these are not accurate as we are not testing everyone that should be) to estimate the real number of Coronavirus infections in Chicago. If you make the assumption that the numbers of under or over-estimation of cases evidenced by your answer are mirrored in the rest of the state, calculate a more realistic number of cases of coronavirus infections statewide, using the Illinois Coronavirus State Dept of Public Health data.