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Volume 7, Issue 2 (Suppl)
J Ecosyst Ecography, an open access journal
ISSN:2157-7625
September 18-20, 2017
September 18-20, 2017 Toronto, Canada
Joint Conference
International Conference on
International Conference on
Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology
&
Ecology and Ecosystems
J Ecosyst Ecography 2017, 7:2 (Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2157-7625-C1-030
Application of online tools and resources on foodborne outbreaks for Microbiology instruction
Narveen Jandu
Gannon University, USA
I
n recent years, there have been several newsworthy outbreaks of infectious disease agents, such as
Zika, Ebola
and the 2015
Escherichia coli
O26 outbreak associated with Chipotle restaurants in the United States. During these outbreaks, numerous resources
can provide the general public, faculty and students with timely, accurate, and credible information. The outbreaks associated with
these microbiological infectious disease agents can and should be incorporated into ongoing microbiology courses. One way to do
this is to utilize the excellent resources available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) websit
e (www.cdc.gov).
The CDC website provides a wealth of resources and information on numerous current, ongoing and past outbreaks. Understandably,
the CDC website can be overwhelming for new users, such as students. Students, however, can be gradually introduced to some of
these resources through planned assessments that will allow students to learn both microbiology content and how to utilize online
resources. Two specific online resources were selected for students to develop their understanding of foodborne outbreaks. These
resources include the FOOD (Foodborne Outbreak Online Database) Tool and the Multistate Foodborne Outbreaks webpage, which
are both available through the CDC website. Both resources allow users to retrieve up-to-date information on ongoing outbreaks,
which allows the content in a microbiology course to be relatable to current news events. As well, students can utilize these resources
to learn how to access public data, use spreadsheets, generate charts, and perform quantitative data analysis and interpretation. For
teaching purposes, these resources are valuable for professors to generate figures and graphics for lectures. The utilization of real-
time online data on ongoing outbreaks on infectious disease agents provides a more relatable and application based approach to
understanding how infectious disease agents cause foodborne and other outbreaks.
jandu0 01@gannon.edu