Centuries of accumulated knowledge on infectious disease spread have been formalized into mathematical models. These models provide us with possible scenarios of the disease progression. Models are not only tools for scientist but also for policy makers who use them to decide which scenario to pursue, pondering on expected negative social and economic consequences of each of them.
We developed indoor and interactive educational games that explain some basic concepts behind this mathematics. The games are suitable for elementary school kids and can be used in classrooms, but everyone can find them useful for figuring out how epidemics work. You can find the games on the pages of our Pixelibris project:
http://www.pixelibris.com/fun-with-mathematics/
The basic mathematical and statistical principles of such models are not so difficult to grasp. Even better, these principles are ideal for gamification – meaning they can be easily presented, observed and learned through a game form in which various game elements are the mathematical elements of the spread of a infectious disease through social contact.