Looking for ideas to add to your infectious disease lesson plan for middle school? I got you.
In today’s world, it’s crucial to understand the science behind those little, microscopic organisms that choose to invade our bodies, and a lot of times, make us feel not so good!
With amazing educators such as you, students can learn how these pathogens cause disease in an engaging way that encompasses critical thinking, research skills, and so much more!
In this post, I will be sharing WOW Factor ideas to teach this topic to your middle school students. First, I will be sharing some WONDER activities. These will get your students to become internally motivated to learn more! Second, I will share an interactive lesson to teach the content to your students in a way that is not overwhelming. Finally, I will share some WIDEN activity ideas to add some extension to your lesson plan on infectious diseases!

WONDER Activities for Your Communicable Diseases Lesson Plan
For me, it’s so easy to get excited about infectious diseases. Ok, not the pathogens and diseases themselves, but I love to learn about this topic as well as all topics in health and biology.
However, your students, and maybe even you, may not enjoy this topic as much, so that’s where WONDER strategies come in. These are the activities that will hype your students up and help them to become internally motivated to learn more! So, once you get to the lesson, they will be hooked in.
Here are 2 WONDER activities you can choose from (or do both) to add to your infectious disease lesson plan!
Glo Germ™ Fun
If you have never used Glo Germ™ or something like it, it’s a must do! You can purchase it in a powder, gel, or oil that can be used to demonstrate how germs can so easily be spread.
I have seen this used in different ways, but here are two.
1. One of my favorite’s was when I saw a teacher greet his students at the door the day of the lesson after putting this on his hands. They had NO clue what he was up to.
He was just his friendly self, shaking their hands, patting them on the shoulders, etc. All the while, he was spreading the substance all over them.
Once he began the class, he shined a UV light on their hands and shirts to show just how easy it was for him to spread “germs”! That’s why handwashing is so important. That leads to the next way that you can use it.
2. You can also put some of the substance one all of your students’ hands and have them take turns going to the bathroom to wash their hands. Once they are back, you can shine the UV light on their hands to see how they did. Surprisingly, or not, most of your students will have to go back and wash their hands again!
This, no doubt, will get them excited about learning about the different types of pathogens that cause disease. They’ll probably wash their hands better for a while as well!

Pathogens Card Sort
Another fun thing to do is to have students sort cards with different pathogens on them, different bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Remember, this is BEFORE they really learn the material. That’s all in the fun! It really gets their brain working on how scientists may classify these microorganisms.
In addition, it activates their prior knowledge, and it’s engaging! Students love to sort things. It’s something about organizing that just makes humans happy!
Here are some examples of pictures that you can print out to make the cards. You can put both the picture and the name!
- Listeria, Salmonella, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus, Neisseria meningitidis, Ebola, Immunodeficiency Virus, Influenza A, Bacteriophage lambda, Tobacco mosaic, Trichophyton rubrum, Alternaria solani, ringworm, flatworms, fleas, Giardia lamblia etc.
You can do as many cards as you want. It’s always cool to see students in action sorting things into categories and hearing their conversations. You don’t want to share too much, though. Remember to build that curiosity.
Once you have hyped them up, it’s time to dive deeper into the infectious disease lesson plans.
Infectious Diseases Interactive Lesson
Interactive lessons are a great way to introduce content to your students. They are designed to help students to actually remember the content instead of it going in one ear and out of the other!
They are specifically created to help reduce the overwhelm in students. If students are overwhelmed with too much information, they end up not learning anything at all!
These lessons include strategies such as highlighting important information, embedded activities, taking out unnecessary information, and so much more.
Oh, and did I mention they were fun, and students enjoy them?!
When teaching about infectious diseases, you first need to teach your students about the pathogens that cause disease and then how those diseases spread.
Pathogens and Diseases
In this lesson, students learn about different pathogens: viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites, and how they cause disease. They will also learn a little bit about how each spread and some things to fight them such as vaccines and antibiotics.
The activities embedded inside the lesson to help your students process the information include an anticipation guide, Venn diagram, drag-and-drop activities, exploring outside resources, and more!
This lesson can be found in the Bright in the Middle Shop.
It can also be found on TPT.
Once you finish this lesson, you can dive into how diseases spread.

Spread of Diseases
In this lesson, students will learn how diseases spread from one person to another and all around the world. The lesson will guide your students through epidemics and pandemics, how outbreaks can occur more than once, mutations, and more!
The activities included inside of the lesson for students to process information include a KWL, drag-and-drop activities, matching activities, exploring outside resources, and more.
Already have a lesson planned? Interactive lessons are also great for science centers, review, and more!
This lesson can be found in the Bright in the Middle Shop.
It can also be found on TPT.
Infectious Diseases Lesson Plan WIDEN Activities
At this point, your students have learned so much about pathogens, infectious diseases, and the spread of disease. They can always learn more, especially about this crucial topic in today’s time! It’s important for them to learn as much as they can to make important health decisions for themselves! Here are two WIDEN activities that you can choose from to add to your infectious disease lesson plan!
Germs Lab
Surely to be one of your students favorite activities is to swab different places in your school to discover the bacteria that is all around them.
You’ll need:
- Petri dishes
- Nutrient agar
- Cotton swabs
- Parafilm or tape
- Prepare the Petri dishes for your students. There are tons of videos online depending on what you or your school’s purchase.
- Have your students choose different places to swab in your classroom or school. It could be a desk, the teacher’s phone, the doorknob, the bathroom sink, the toilet, the gum under the desk, or whatever they wish. It’s great to do this in groups of 2-3 and have each group swab a different place.
- Once students have chosen their place to swab, they will take a cotton swab and swab that area.
- Then, they will gently rub the swab on the agar in the petri dish.
- Students will put the lid on and secure it with Parafilm or tape. Don’t open again! Also, don’t forget to label them!
- Leave the bacteria to grow and develop for 4-6 days and then record your results.
- Have a discussion!
I always find this experiment fascinating because there is bacteria on most surfaces, and it’s always the ones you don’t suspect! Here’s a great video by Sick Science to give you a visual.
They may be able to even identify pathogens, and at least 3 examples of infectious diseases caused by them!
Poisoned Picnic
The CDC provides a lot of resources for teachers and students on the topic of infectious disease. One that you can check out is the Poisoned Picnic activity!
In this activity, students will be looking at different information to determine the agent responsible for causing an outbreak of some mysterious illness!
Then, they have to create a proposal to identify the cause of this illness and how outbreaks can be prevented in the future! This is a great addition to any infection control lesson plan.
I hope you found a lot of ideas to add to your communicable diseases lesson plan for middle school!
Bonus: Diseases and Pathogens Case Studies Activity
In this activity, students explore different cases (fictional based on actual diseases). Based on the cases and clues about spread, treatment, and prevention, students must determine whether the infection is based on a bacteria, virus, parasite, or fungi. Then, they must explain how they came up with that conclusion!
Some of the cases are based on infections such as strep throat, athletes foot, and malaria!
Want to explore more about this activity?

Help your students master science content!

[…] Infectious Diseases […]