INTRODUCTION

Throughout history, societies have struggled to understand and contain the spread of highly infectious diseases. While more efficient modes of transportation allowed civilizations to be more interconnected, these advances allowed pathogens to spread beyond local communities and develop into pandemics. Two of the most devastating pandemics in history were the Black Death in the 14th century and the influenza pandemic in 1918. Both resulted in the death of millions of people and had social, economic, and political effects.

In this task, you will examine the causes of the Black Death and the 1918 influenza pandemic. You will also analyze the role humans played in the spread of these diseases as well as the response to them.

REQUIREMENTS

Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. The similarity report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide.

You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.

Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc., unless specified in the task requirements. All other submissions must be file types that are uploaded and submitted as attachments (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .ppt).

A. Analyze the causes and responses to the Black Death (suggested length of 1–2 pages) by doing the following:

1. Describe the causes of the Black Death.

2. Explain how humans contributed to the spread of the Black Death.

3. Describe the responses to the Black Death.

B. Analyze the causes and responses to the 1918 influenza pandemic (suggested length of 1–2 pages) by doing the following:

1. Describe the causes of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

2. Explain how humans contributed to the spread of the influenza virus in 1918.

3. Describe the responses to the 1918 influenza pandemic.

C. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.

D. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.