TEAM

EDUCATION

Part 4: Niche Engagements (Low Impact, Focused Reach):

Game -- cheerful

(Score: 41.0)

When conducting science outreach activities, we believe that younger children have difficulties in accepting knowledge related to specialised biology, synthetic biology, microbiology and so on. Based on the principle of fun and education, we designed a set of card games based on synthetic biology components, with laboratory research and fermentation production as the background. Through the game, we can help children understand this knowledge more intuitively, and stimulate their interest and motivation to explore the field of synthetic biology.
Game Image 1 Game Image 2 Game Image 3

Card design

Meanings

Based on the standard library of components in synthetic biology, this card game transforms complex biological concepts into intuitive and interesting card mechanisms, which has the following educational significance:

  • Stimulate scientific interest: Through cards such as "promoter", "resistance gene", "coercion", etc., children are naturally exposed to biological concepts such as gene regulation and environmental stress during the game. Through cards such as "promoter", "resistance gene", "stress", etc., children can naturally come into contact with biological concepts such as gene regulation and environmental stress, and stimulate their curiosity in life science.
  • Understanding the function of biological components: Each card in the game corresponds to a real biological component (e.g. promoter, deterrent protein, resistance gene), and children can intuitively understand the functions and interactions of these components during the process of playing the cards.
  • Reinforce the thinking of synthetic biology: Through the setting of "promoter+resistance gene" to resist "stress", it simulates the engineering of "design-build-test" in synthetic biology. Through the setting of "promoter + resistance gene" to resist "coercion", the game simulates the engineering thinking of "design - build - test" in synthetic biology, which helps children to establish the concept of system biology.
  • Teamwork and Competitive Awareness: The game supports multi-player battles, so children learn to cooperate and compete in attack and defence, and enhance their communication skills and team awareness.

Feedback

For parents:

Parents would like to continue to promote our achievements and hope that in the future they can be accompanied by instructional videos or popular science picture books, etc., to further help their children understand complex knowledge and concepts.

For teachers:

Students raised a lot of questions during the game, such as "Why does the inhibitory protein inhibit the expression of promoters and resistance genes?" etc. This approach improves students' participation in the classroom, and also helps them to think independently and internalise their knowledge.

For children:

The rules of the game are simple and easy to understand, and they can start playing the game through basic teaching. Children learnt more from the game and gained the experience of "becoming a scientist", which greatly improved their knowledge of biology.