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Credit: Saskia Keller, National Wildlife Health Center.

Over the next 4 weeks (advance 4 weeks/ticks in NetLogo), your team runs two laboratory experiments, which cost a total of $10,000.

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In the first experiment, you collected 40 garter snakes from the wild which had no disease symptoms and randomly assigned them to one of two treatment groups: a control group (n=20 snakes) and an exposure group (n=20 snakes). Each snake was housed in a separate glass aquarium. At the start of the experiment, snakes in the exposure treatment group had their faces rubbed with a cotton swab that had been previously rubbed on the face of a snake that had disease symptoms to collect the fungal spores. You rubbed a clean cotton swab on the faces of control snakes as a "sham exposure". You monitored the snakes for two weeks while feeding and caring for all snakes in the same way, and you recorded any observed disease symptoms. Here is a graph of your results:

A bar graph showing the percent of snakes with four symptoms: discolored scales, lethargy, blindness, and death. Most exposed snails had discolored scales and lethargy, and some were blind or dead by the end of two weeks. A few control snakes were lethargic, but otherwise had no disease symptoms.

In the second experiment, you collected infected and symptomatic garter snakes from the wild and kept them in individual aquaria for two weeks. Then you removed the infected snakes and did not clean the aquaria. You then collected 40 garter snakes from the wild that had no disease symptoms and randomly assigned them to one of two treatment groups: a control group (n=20 snakes) and an exposure group (n=20 snakes). You placed the control snakes in clean aquaria and you placed the exposure treatment snakes in the dirty aquaria that had housed infected snakes. You monitored the snakes for two weeks while feeding and caring for all snakes in the same way, and you recorded any observed disease symptoms. Here is a graph of your results:

A bar graph showing the percent of snakes with four symptoms: discolored scales, lethargy, blindness, and death. Most exposed snails had discolored scales and lethargy, and some were blind or dead by the end of two weeks. One control snake was lethargic, but otherwise had no disease symptoms.

Armed with these new insights, what would you like to do next?

Option 1: Do more laboratory experiments to see if infected snakes can be cured of their infections.

Time Cost: 4 Weeks/Ticks

Monetary Cost: $10000

Charisma Effect: Unknown

Option 2: Begin a control program.

Time Cost: Depends on which intervention you select

Monetary Cost: Depends on which intervention you select

Charisma Effect: Unknown

Option 3: Do nothing; this is a typical mortality event for a new strain of a wildlife pathogen, and it just needs to run its course.

Time Cost: 12 Weeks/Ticks

Monetary Cost: $0

Charisma Effect: Unknown

Option 4:  Apply for more money for research or control efforts.

Time Cost: 4 Weeks/Ticks

Monetary Cost: $0

Charisma Effect: Unknown

Educational games increase student engagement and learning. This game was created by S. Hopkins, PhD and is free to adapt and use. The corresponding NetLogo model and student worksheet are available on QUBESHub at http://dx.doi.org/10.25334/1XBQ-M835. 

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