In 2019, China became a flash point of an emerging global disease . It became the epicenter of a corona virus associated acute respiratory disease, called Covid-19. The origin of the name resides in the designation - SARS-CoV-2 - as human pathogen placed within the family - Coronaviridae - by the Coronaviridae Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The shorthand Covid-19, the year of outbreak being 2019.

Yes, the world had seen pandemics before, but Covid-19 came and the world changed! A virus was impacting mankind life as never before. The global dynamics, the complexities and the challenges of a Covid-19 world created an upheaval - creating global strictures impacting human health, the economy, race, education, global transportation, and upending family life and livelihood. The learning and lessons drawings, in these, presuppose a need for presenting a knowledge of, and an understanding of the Biology of Covid-19, its fallouts and spillage into our lives, into the economy, into the socio-political mores vis-à-vis their implications for education and society.

And here, in reverberations of history, comes James Baldwin's calling cards, in the relevance of history to remind us of today - of the present.

"History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations."  

- James Baldwin, "Unnameable Objects, Unspeakable Crimes" (1966).

In this, in what one may call the dynamic interactions, and the overlaps of Science and Society is the possibility of a creative and adaptive aspects of Microbiology. And coming to the Smithsonian experience - in The National Museum of American History - in Stories from the Museum, are identifiable artifacts, stories and writings - in the Science and Medicine category; in related historical parallels - of the Spanish flu and its impact on the world and the American Society; of related stories on Vaccines and protection from anti-bodies.

The Collections here, represent a coupling and adaptation of the "Teacher Innovator Institute" - "Bring the Museum to your classroom." It is a student participatory and active learning ("authentic learning") format in STEM education over the semester designed for my Microbiology class. For the student, the relevant course curriculum is found in the study of viruses and of diseases, and of the immunological responses in the subject's Textbook.

The format in use will be in case studies in the epidemiology and pathology of Covid-19; in the historical parallels in human and societal impacts; in class project presentation on materials housed - at the Museum - on previous pandemics and diseases. And, for ease of access, the Collections gathered here are for such use.