CDC Disease Detective Camp

CDC Disease Detective Camp (DDC) is an educational program started in 2005 as a mechanism for developing a public health camp curriculum for state and county health departments. The camp is open to upcoming high school juniors and seniors and is held at CDC's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Open to high-school students during the summer before their junior or senior years and they must be at least 16 years old on the first day of the camp session to which they are accepted. 

The CDC Disease Detective Camp curriculum is based on contextual and situated cognition learning principles. By learning through hands-on activities and seminars, high school juniors and seniors at the conclusion of the camp will be able to:

• Identify five careers within public health
• Demonstrate an understanding of basic epidemiology terms
• Calculate basic epidemiologic rates given an outbreak scenario and data
• Recognize how infectious and chronic diseases are tracked in the United States
• Understand the role of public health law in protecting the public′s health in the United States.

Over the course of five days, campers will take on the role of disease detectives and learn first-hand how the CDC safeguards the nation's health. Teams will probe a disease outbreak using epidemiologic and laboratory skills and report their findings to a group of CDC scientists. Activities may include short lectures by CDC experts, a mock press conference in the CDC press room, and a look behind the scenes of CDC.