Table 2.

Introductory review of the SARS epidemic

Time	Historical development of the SARS epidemic	Multimedia items/teaching and learning activities	Embedded elements of NOS and scientific inquiry
Nov 2002	News that a mysterious respiratory illness, later known as SARS, had occurred in Guangzhou.	Picture of the infected lungs of a SARS patient
	News from Guangzhou about panic buying of vinegar and banlangen, a type of Chinese medicine believed to cure flu.	Photos and news headlines of people queuing up for vinegar and banlangen	Cultural embeddedness of science: belief in Chinese versus Western medicine
Dec 2002–Feb 2003	Spreading of SARS to many cities in Southern China.	An animated map of Southern China showing the gradual spreading of SARS from Guangzhou to the cities close to the border with Hong Kong.
Mid-Feb 2003	Dr. Liu, a Guangzhou-based professor who was infected with SARS, visited Hong Kong. He stayed at the Metropole Hotel, from where SARS started to creep into the Hong Kong community. A number of residents living in the hotel became infected.	A 100-s video reconstruction, based on later scientific evidence, of how Dr. Liu could have infected other people living in the same hotel through droplets from coughing leaving viruses on the elevator button.	Science relies on empirical evidence and logical arguments.
	Most of them left Hong Kong by air to other countries, and quickly spread the disease to the rest of the world. At this point, WHO was unaware of what was happening.	The video shows how SARS was spreading to other parts of the world through air traffic, initially without anyone noticing.
4 Mar 2003	A Hong Kong citizen, who was infected by Dr. Liu at the Metropole Hotel, was admitted to the Prince of Wales Hospital (PWH) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).	Photos and news headlines showing the outbreak of SARS in PWH. Within days, many patients and doctors in the same Ward became infected.
	He became the index patient of the outbreak in this hospital.
15 Mar 2003	Dr David Heymann, Executive Director of Communicable Diseases at WHO announced that the disease was to be named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).	A 50-s video showing a team of scientists at WHO compiling a list of symptoms to be announced internationally so that everyone would know what to look for. The team compiled guidelines for hospitals, including how to construct isolation units, what protective clothing to wear, and what to do in the event of an outbreak. Once the information was ready, it was disseminated throughout the world via the Internet.	Science has global implications.
18 Mar 2003	CUHK and laboratories in Germany, Canada and Singapore announced that the virus causing SARS might be a paramyxovirus.	Photos and news headlines showing the appearance of the paramyxovirus and a 12-s news excerpt of the announcement made by CUHK.
22 Mar 2003	The University of Hong Kong (HKU) successfully isolated the SARS virus, which was later known as coronavirus, and devised a basic diagnostic test for it.	Photos and news headlines showing the appearance of the coronavirus and the team responsible for the breakthrough, followed by a 30-s video of the news announcement made by HKU.	Science is tentative.
Late Mar 2003	Even with the breakthrough in identifying the causative agent of SARS, the number of cases of infection and death due to SARS kept rising.	Photos and news headlines showing the spreading of SARS into the community of Hong Kong and a 20-s video showing SARS spreading in hospitals in Toronto and Taiwan.
27 Mar 2003	WHO requested airlines to screen passengers for SARS on flights leaving Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi, Toronto and some parts of China.	A photo showing the temperature screening of passengers at an airport.	Scientific knowledge (about diseases) may impact on society.
	Hong Kong Government announced a series of emergency measures to reduce the spread of SARS	News headlines and photos about the emergency measures in Hong Kong, including the suspension of schools.
28 Mar–31 Mar 2003	A residential building in Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong was found to have an alarming number of cases of infection.	An animated graph showing the number of infected cases in Amoy Gardens, rising from 7–185 within 4 days.
31 Mar–1 April 2003	The Hong Kong Department of Health imposed quarantine on Block E of Amoy Gardens. An unprecedented order from the Hong Kong government to move all residents of Block E to isolation camps to allow a thorough investigation of the mysterious severe outbreak.	A 20-s video showing government health workers and residents of Amoy Gardens, all in masks, being sent to isolation camps in a rural area. It also shows the cross-disciplinary investigation team entering the building to find clues to the cause of the outbreak.	Science and political decisions are inter-related.
12 April 2003	The first genomic sequence of SARS-coronavirus was coded by a team of scientists from various laboratories in Canada, including British Columbia Cancer Agency Genome Sciences Centre and British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.	A 40-s video showing genomic sequencers running automatically and pictures of typical genomic sequences. The narrator of the video says: ‘… Just 20 days after the discovery of the SARS-coronavirus, a team in Canada announced they have cracked the virus’s entire genetic code… Never in the history of science had a new disease been sequenced so quickly.’
16 April 2003	Teams at CUHK and HKU became the third to produce the genomic sequence of the SARS virus, after Canada and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.	Photos of the HKU and CUHK sequencing teams.
23 May 2003	Researchers from HKU and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Shenzhen, successfully isolated the coronavirus causing SARS from civet cats.	Photos of civet cats in cages in restaurants and news headlines of the announcement of findings by scientists in Hong Kong and Mainland China that civet cats were the likely origin of SARS. Unique dietary habits in Guangzhou might have caused the disease.
23 June 2003	Hong Kong was removed from the World Health Organisation’s list of SARS-infected areas.	News headlines about the removal of Hong Kong from the list, followed by a concluding 20-s video flashing through memorable events around the world during the SARS epidemics. The narrator says: ‘All over the world, countries coordinated and fought back against the disease.’ Dr Julie Hall, a WHO Medical Officer, says: ‘It really is a good news of tingling human story, seeing the world which is often so fragmented pulling together to really try and fight against this common cold.’	Scientists are not limited to Western white males.