Malaria worksheet: a teaching resource for primary schools

This is a resource created for a workshop focusing on malaria infection aimed at primary school children (age 5-11 years). The idea is to provide stimulating material that inspires interest and intrigue, raising questions for discussion and encouraging children to get involved. We used the worksheet in parallel with an activity to 'act out' the transmission of malaria; we created our own mosquitoes from coloured paper and pipecleaners, set up a 'swamp' in the classroom, used red stickers to represent infection, and hung a mosquito net, sprayed ourselves with insect repellent, and talked about wearing the right kind of clothing to illustrate how we might protect ourselves.
The themes covered can be broad, from asking children to consider what we mean by a 'germ' or an 'infection', thinking about the different ways infection can be spread, discussing how we might be made vulnerable by where we live in the world and by changes in climate, and talking about ways that we can intervene to tackle disease and break transmission.