After months of collective work, a collaborative effort from Georgia State and Emory has published “EBOLA: People + Public Health + Political Will,” an online exhibit hosted by the CDC.
The website is a digital record of the spread of the Ebola virus around West Africa and the world during the 2014-2016 epidemic. It was originally created as an in-person exhibition before being co-opted as a student led project.
A healer’s drum from Sierra Leone, captured using photogrammetry by Brennan Collins’ Project Lab students
Undergrads from Computer Science and Biology indexed and mapped oral histories, created 3D models of exhibit artifacts and helped organize exhibit material into a digital format, said Brennan Collins, associate director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Online Education at the university.
“Students working on large, public-facing projects have to problem-solve in a way that they often don’t in regular classroom experiences,” Collins said. “There often aren’t clear right or wrong answers to the many problems they run into, like how to 3D capture an outfit without a mannequin or how to reorganize content to better fit an online context.”
The Mapping Atlanta project lab, while usually focused on the geography of Atlanta, used the skills students developed to add markers to oral histories from CDC responders, volunteers, and local organizers. You can access the exhibit by following this link.