Jul 17, 2014 1 min read

WHEELING (AP) – The National Institutes of Health has awarded more than $1 million to Wheeling Jesuit University to develop an education program that uses simulated pandemic flu outbreaks to teach high school students about biology.

The project is called Pandem-Sim: Saving the World With Biology.

Wheeling Jesuit announced the five-year grant on Thursday.

The project’s principal investigator, Charles Wood, says in a news release that researchers will create a live simulation of new flu pandemic outbreaks in which students will play the roles of medical scientists.

Researchers also will create problem-based learning modules and career development activities. Resources will be developed for teachers to enable them to incorporate the learning into their classrooms in multiple ways.