Recording a Pandemic
How will future Rosslanders encounter or explore our experiences from today? How can we help record this experience for the future?
Consider organizing your own thoughts, experiences, and material for your current experience with staying at home and navigating the world during this unprecedented time.
Have you put out hearts and signs to thank our front line workers? Have you been exchanging postcards and letters with friends across the world? What’s are your experiences as a parent/grandparent/kid? Have you been recording your experiences by journaling, blogging, photography, and/or video? Did you make your own face masks?
Check out this great “Recording a Pandemic” Resource for some ideas and how-tos.
There’s also a Kids section!
Some possible questions to consider:
Background Questions
What is the date and time?
What is your name, and what are the the primary things you do on a day-to-day basis (for example, your job, your extracurricular activities, etc.)?
Where do you live, and what is it like to live there?
When you first learned about COVID-19, what were your thoughts about it? How have your thoughts changed since then?
What issues have most concerned you about the COVID-19 pandemic?
Employment
Has COVID-19 affected your job? In what ways?
Has COVID-19 changed your employment status? In what ways?
What concerns do you have about the effects of COVID-19 on your employment and the economy more broadly?
Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the employment of people you know? In what ways?
Lifestyle
How has COVID-19 affected you and/or your family’s day-to-day activities?
How are you managing day-to-day activities in your household?
Has the COVID-19 outbreak affected how you associate and communicate with friends and family? In what ways?
What have been the biggest challenges that you have faced during the COVID-19 outbreak?
What have you, your family, and friends done for recreation during COVID-19 (feel free to include details about shows, games, books, etc.)?
Community
How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected your community (Remember, you may be part of many communities including school, club, church, job, etc. You are welcome to speak about all of these communities)?
How are people around you responding to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Have you seen the people around you change their opinions, day-to-day activities, or relationships in response to the pandemic?
“Self isolation” and “flattening the curve” have been two key ideas that have emerged during the pandemic. How have you, your family, friends, and community responded to requests to “self isolate” and “flatten the curve”?
Has COVID-19 changed your relationships with family, friends, and community? In what ways?
Health
Have you or anybody you know gotten sick during the COVID-19 outbreak? What has been your experience in responding to the sickness?
In what ways do you think that COVID-19 is affecting people’s mental and/or physical health?
Information
What have been your primary sources of news during the pandemic?
Have your news sources changed during the course of the pandemic?
What do you think are important issues that the media may is or is not covering?
Government
How have municipal leaders and government officials in your community responded to the outbreak?
Do you have any thoughts on how local, state, or federal leaders are responding to the crisis differently?
The Future
Has your experience transformed how you think about your family, friends, and community? In what ways?
Knowing what you know now, what do you think that individuals, communities, or governments need to keep in mind for the future?