Jonas Salk: Leading the Way to Eradicate Polio
Madison Warman and Sarah Seymour
Junior Division
Group Website
Early childhood memories include for us the “trauma” of injections and
immunizations, but they were part of the price of going to school. As we have
moved into our teenage years, we have always been bombarded with the demands
for flu shots and cautions about infectious diseases. We began to learn about past
epidemics that no longer threaten us and decided to investigate a person who
helped to conquer a devastating disease, Dr. Jonas Salk. One of our teachers spoke
about this remarkable achievement which has changed the outlook for so many
people throughout the world.
In our National History Day class we began to learn the processes of in
depth research to develop our topic; the class started with an overview of Nation
History Day objectives and procedures and moved to research on computers in our
school library. There we discovered data bases and viewed videos. On field trips to
Laconia Public Library and later to Plymouth State University Library, we
examined new data bases and explored the stacks for books and materials for both
primary and secondary sources. We were encouraged by all of our research, for we
truly believed that Jonas Salk was a leader who left a wonderful legacy for the
world.
After we had most of our research, we had to choose the most effective
presentation for our material. Since a website would allow us to create new pages
for different achievements with relevant pictures, we decided it would show our
topic more clearly. Using Weebly, we entered our information and assigned our
photographs and graphs to specific pages to emphasize the progression of
Dr. Salk’s achievements. After we added documents, we inserted videos that
showed Dr. Salk testing his vaccines and speaking in interviews. One video
contained a brief timeline that enhanced one of our pages. These additions helped
us to make sure that the importance of his achievements was clearly explored, and
that we had shown the effects of his legacy.
Jonas Salk helped create the influenza vaccine, and in that process he
challenged other scientists, found new ways to make vaccines, and proved to be a
leader in medical history. His work was instrumental in eradicating poliomyelitis,
one of the most feared and widespread diseases of his time. Salk refused to patent
the vaccine to keep the cost low and affordable for people who needed the
vaccination against poliomyelitis and other diseases. His work and the
development of other vaccines has been continued by other scientists: his legacy is
still giving life around the world.