CDQ Finale: Changes in Earth’s Habitats - Ella Oldendorp

 

CDQ Finale: Changes in Earth’s Habitats

As Earth’s habitats shift due to habitat destruction, rising temperatures, and urbanization, the balance between humans, animals, and infectious diseases is being disrupted. Environmental changes create new opportunities for diseases to emerge and spread. As habitats continue to change, so do viruses, and with this, new outbreaks are certain to come in the future. This video focuses on the Curious Driving Driving Question “How do the changes in Earth’s habitats impact the emergence of infectious diseases?” Watch the video to learn more about the impacts of habitat destruction, rising temperatures, and urbanization on the emergence and spread of infectious disease.

Reflection

Making this video was a very rewarding experience and I learned a lot on how diseases emerge due to environmental factors such as urbanization, rising temperatures, and habitat destruction.

I am proud of creating the images for our video because this process allowed me to learn how to transfer information in words into visuals for my audience to see. I had to pick out key points and info that would not be in the text to display in my images. Then, I had to create the images myself in Canva and make sure my images were telling a story. Creating images proved that I understood the content and was able to put the content into visuals to teach my audience.

I am also proud of how I was able to edit my final video together using WeVideo. This part was not easy and required a lot of time spent moving audio and images around. Getting the video to be under 5 minutes was also hard and required editing lots of audio clips.

The content of my CDQ covered different factors of Earth’s changing habitats that contribute to emerging infectious diseases. I covered how when humans and wildlife are forced into closer contact, the risk of zoonotic spillover, or the transmission of pathogens from animals to humans, increases. The video also touched on how increased temperatures allow for viruses to spread to new areas, infect vectors more easily, and mutate within the vector. Lastly, I covered how large cities are incubators for zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that spread from animals to humans. All these concepts were expanded on in my video, so my audience would leave the video with new knowledge and insight.

To improve my video, I would have included more interactive elements and engaging images. I wanted to included videos instead of static images to provide a more entertaining and informative piece for my audience. Next time, I will definitely implement these improvements.

Overall, I had a great time creating my CDQ Finale video and learned so much about my topic. I can’t wait to share the video with my audience and I hope everyone who watches the video will learn something new.

Works Cited

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CDC. “Dengue on the Rise: Get the Facts.” Dengue, 2024, http://www.cdc.gov/dengue/stories/dengue-on-the-rise-get-the-facts.html.

CDC. “Lyme Disease Case Map.” Lyme Disease, 20 May 2024, http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/data-research/facts-stats/lyme-disease-case-map.html.

“Climate Change Causes Malaria Cases to Triple in Northwest Pakistan.” Gavi.org, 2022, http://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/climate-change-causes-malaria-cases-triple-northwest-pakistan.

Evans, Hannah, and Janet Larsen. “How Population Growth & Human Activities Increase the Risk of Zoonosis.” Population Connection, https://www.facebook.com/PopulationConnection, https://populationconnection.org/resources/pandemics/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2025.

Hassell, James M., et al. “Urbanization and Disease Emergence: Dynamics at the Wildlife–Livestock–Human Interface.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution, no. 1, Elsevier BV, Jan. 2017, pp. 55–67. Crossref, doi:10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.012.

“How Habitat Destruction Enables the Spread of Diseases Like COVID-19 .” College of Natural Resources News, 22 Apr. 2020, https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2020/04/habitat-destruction-covid19/.

Liao, Hongyan, et al. “Climate Change, Its Impact on Emerging Infectious Diseases and New Technologies to Combat the Challenge.” Emerging Microbes & Infections, no. 1, Informa UK Limited, May 2024. Crossref, doi:10.1080/22221751.2024.2356143.

Neiderud, Carl-Johan. “How Urbanization Affects the Epidemiology of Emerging Infectious Diseases.” Infection Ecology & Epidemiology, no. 1, Informa UK Limited, Jan. 2015, p. 27060. Crossref, doi:10.3402/iee.v5.27060.

Reiner, R. C., et al. “Climate Change, Urbanization and Disease: Summer in the City…” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, no. 3, Oxford University Press (OUP), Dec. 2014, pp. 171–72. Crossref, doi:10.1093/trstmh/tru194.

Stone, Lisa. “Climate Change and Infectious Diseases .” NETEC, 25 Mar. 2024, https://netec.org/2024/03/25/climate-change-and-infectious-diseases/.

“The Deadly Diseases That Are Spiking Because of Climate Change.” Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/deadly-diseases-are-spiking-because-climate-change. Accessed 26 Sept. 2025.

Yehya, Nadine. “Experts Warn Climate Change Will Fuel Spread of Infectious Diseases.” UC Davis Health, UC Davis Health, 20 Mar. 2024, https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/experts-warn-climate-change-will-fuel-spread-of-infectious-diseases-/2024/03.