Summary
The flu comes with all sorts of icky symptoms, from coughing and sneezing to body aches and fever. The cause of all this trouble is the influenza virus, which infects our cells and replicates, or makes more copies of itself. Once you’re infected with the flu, you can spread it to others, because it’s contagious. Fortunately, our immune system can fight off the virus. It builds antibodies—special substances that target the influenza virus and help destroy it. But it takes time, so we use flu shots for a head start. Flu shots are vaccines that use dead or severely weakened viruses to show our immune system what to attack. Still, the flu virus keeps mutating, or changing its genetic code. That’s why one year’s flu shot doesn’t protect from next year’s flu. Fortunately, scientists around the world join forces in the fight against the flu, developing new flu shots every year to keep us healthy. Press “Play” to learn more about how you can fight the influenza virus!
Viewer safety
Our rating is a quick teacher-to-teacher guide — preview before showing.
Teaching resources
Discussion questions
A few questions to talk through after watching Flu:
- What is one new thing you learned about flu?
- Can you explain it to a partner in your own words?
- Where might you see this in the real world?
- What is one question you still have?
Quick work-a-long
Try it:
- Write one sentence explaining flu.
- Draw or give one example of your own.