Education
In the course of our project, we have critically examined the social acceptance and legal requirements with regard to research and science. The rapid progress in Synthetic Biology is slowed down in some areas and remains behind its possibilities. There is a great need for discussion about science in society.
Central to this is a basic interest and understanding. Therefore, it was a matter of heart for us to promote the interest in research and science. In particular we aimed to address school children, because children are our future. Therefore, we decided to carry out education projects while working on our project InToSens. Due to the given pandemic, it was not possible to organize on-site events. Consequently, we were looking for creative ways to inform people about Synthetic Biology. On the one hand, we participated in a vacation course for students, the online Gauss AG, and on the other hand we developed a board game about biology.
Cell Master - A Synthetic Biology Board Game
To strengthen the interest of pupils and students in natural sciences, we decided to develop a complete novel board game about intracellular processes in animal cells. We, the iGEM Team Hannover, did not only play this game in advance, but also gathered feedback from interested students. With the help of this feedback we have refined and adapted the game over and over again. We have also sent it by e-mail to various schools so that it can be played in class. For this purpose, we created a DIY version of our game so that anyone can reproduce it at home or at school. All you need is a printer, glue and scissors.
The aim of the game is to learn about the processes of transcription, translation and transfection in a playful way and to learn how an animal cell is built. The game’s playing field represents a typical animal cell, with all the important organelles and characteristics. In order to get to the right place within the cell, the students learn, for example, what the cell nucleus looks like or what a mitochondrion does.
The game is played together as a team and is won through the cooperative solution of tasks. For this purpose, each player first chooses a character card. These cards represent the different courses of study from our iGEM team members. A QR code on the cards allows you to learn more about the study program. This way, the interest in the natural sciences should be additionally promoted and it can serve as an orientation for the pupils’ later choice of studies. Within the different scenarios in the game the pupils learn, among other things, to decipher the DNA code with a codon wheel, for example, to translate the DNA coding sequence into amino acids, and which components are required for the transcription apparatus to work. We use, for instance, the visual depiction of structural formulas and schemata in order to promote both conscious learning and subconscious playful discovery. In addition, quiz questions, by which ATP can be won in the game, serve to promote knowledge of Synthetic Biology. ATP is used as the currency of the game - you need it to use an active transporter, to start processes in the cell and to complete your missions, all energy-intensive processes in the game. During the game, glucose can be exchanged for ATP at the mitochondrion.
Action cards make each round of the game different and individual, as they trigger random events within the cell. These events can be both positive and negative. An example of such random events is given by the attack of a virus or the onset of apoptosis of the cell. In this way, additional knowledge about cell biology can be conveyed in a playful way. And the best thing about our game is that it is demonstrably fun, because it is exciting and varied.
We have designed our game in German as well as in English. In addition, we have sent it to numerous other iGEM teams with a self-filled version with the request to play it in and translate it into their national language. In this way we achieve the widest possible and international distribution of our game and enable students worldwide to explore the world of Cell and Synthetic Biology in a playful way.
The best way to test it yourself is to try out our game. We hope you enjoy playing! Watch also our introductory video (see below).
Click above or use the QR codes to download the game and instructions.
Here is our introductory video and a video showing you how to prepare the DIY parts.
Gauss AG
The Gauss AG is a project of unikik of the Leibniz University of Hannover. For more than 20 years, unikik has been offering various trial and orientation projects for pupils to ease the transition from school to university. Pupils are introduced to scientific work at an early stage, they can find out about the teaching and research conducted by the faculties and gain insights into the various fields of study.
In the course of this years online Gauss AG we designed worksheets for pupils on the topics Synthetic Biology, iGEM and our project InToSens. Besides info texts and an experiment on DNA isolation, the worksheet also included questions in different levels of difficulty, so that children from 10 years on had fun solving the tasks. In an online question and answer session the school children were able to ask all of their questions and we had a lot of fun answering them as well as seeing the pupils' enthusiasm for science.
You can download the course by clicking the link below.