BioMech
We initially had the idea of an educational
synthetic biology board game named BioMech early on
in the summer when we discovered the shocking lack of
synthetic biology education in the United Kingdom. The
aim of BioMech is to introduce secondary and sixth form
students to scientific field in a fun and interactive way.
The game teaches students to plasmid construction, biological
parts and other essential biological concepts like mutation.
Why did we decide to create a board game?
After researching synthetic biology education in the UK,
we discovered that there is a limited number of cheap and nationally
available educational resources for biology, with many teachers needing
to create their own material to inspire students. Furthermore, there is
also no education in synthetic biology for secondary school or A level students.
In response to this we decided to get into contact with Edexcel,
a GCSE and A Level exam board, and enquired the possibility of introducing
synthetic biology in the syllabus. They responded with “iGEM could produce
support resources, for the existing A level, which introduced ideas of
synthetic biology and which could be used as ‘stretch and challenge’
materials by teachers”. At this point we focused our efforts on making
BioMech an easily accessible educational tool that can be used alongside
the current syllabus, building on the cellular biology and genetics that
are currently taught at GCSE and A-Level biology. >
The aim of the game
The game teaches students about plasmid construction,
biological parts and other essential biological concepts like
mutation. The game starts with 10 BioBrick cards for each player
who places 5 cards on the board to construct their plasmid. The
winner of the round is the player that designed the plasmid that
will be most useful in a randomly chosen scenario, the most appropriate
plasmid is determined by card scores and player discussion. After a round,
5 more cards are dealt and the game continues, the winner is the person that
wins the most rounds.
Initial testing at The Judd School (July 2016)
Playing the game
After making an initial prototype the team took the game
to The Judd School, a secondary school in Tonbridge,
United Kingdom, to be tested by a group of GCSE students. We started
off the day by introducing the iGEM project as well as explaining
a few fundamental synthetic biology terms such as BioBricks and
plasmids. After forming two groups, the students began to play
the game under our supervision and quickly grasped the rules.
All of the students got involved with the game, often reacting
enthusiastically whenever a mutation occurred in a cell.
Interviews and Feedback
Even though the game was a hit with the students,
we still wanted to determine if the game was a viable option
as an education resource; the game needed to be able to educate
and inspire students. After the session we conducted a number
of interviews with some of the students, with a few saying that
they were much more likely to study biology after playing the game.
I barely knew about any of this before today, I’m definitely
much more likely to take Biology for A-Level.
We interviewed two teachers at The Judd School to ask if they would
consider using a learning resource such as our own in their lessons
and if they thought the board game would prepare their students for
entering iGEM in the coming years. The head of key stage 3, Dr Courel,
thought that as the game enables students to consider real life applications
for genetically modified organism, and that this would aid the students when
thinking about their own iGEM project. The head of biology at Judd School,
Mrs Andrew’s thought our game would make a great intermediate step between
theory in the classroom, and introducing students to the wet lab.
>
Improvements
The Judd School visit was both a successful and productive,
as we got plenty of high quality feedback from both students and teachers
on how we could improve the game to educate more effectively and reach out
to more schools.
The students suggested a number of minor improvements to
the gameplay through a short survey, the results of this can be found
here. The largest change to our game came after Mrs Andrew’s
asked if she could keep a copy of the game herself. We knew that we could not
afford to give board games out too everyone, so we came up with a new way to
distribute our game at no cost. Our board game BioMech is now online to download
for free on our wiki here, with full printing instructions.
This meant that our original target of making our game accessible to all UK
students was a lot more realistic.
Production
After testing the game at a couple of science conventions
such as the Big Bang Fair South West and Britain Needs
Scientists, we were give feedback to help us make some minor improvements.
After this was complete, we began planning manufacturing the game. The problem with manufacturing the game was that we didn’t have the funds to do it ourselves. However, we were very fortunate in the fact that Dr Mark Ramsdale was willing to give us the necessary funds for us to print 16 copies of the board game, in order for us to distribute these to schools, in a widening participation activity for the university. We then started to look into schools to distribute the board game to, which became extremely difficult as term finished shortly after. Despite the fact that we have the ability to distribute the game at no cost, with the downloadable version of BioMech developed, we wanted to give local schools, schools that have helped us along the way and under-achieving schools physical copies of BioMech. This would act as a thank you to the schools that have helped us on the way, but also provide an accessible resource to schools who may not have access to high-quality, modern teaching resources like our board game.
This new version of the game was played by students from
Colyton Grammar School. As part of our initiative
to make BioMech accessible to as many GCSE students as possible
we have began leaving copies of the game at schools free of charge,
in order to benefit the education of synthetic biology for GCSE and
A level students.
The Colyton Grammar School visit occurred on 18/07/16. Four of our team members – Alice, Andy, Joel and Jack – ran a one hour board game session with a class of 26 Year 9 students, falling at the lower end of of our target demographic (14-18). In an attempt to better understand how BioMech had been received, we conducted a survey with the students. The raw data (PDFs of surveys) and the full data analysis are available upon request.
Of the 23 responses to question 7 - “Did our board game change your perception of synthetic biology? If so, how?” - 78.3% were positive answers that indicated the respondent had enjoyed the game and had learned from the game. Answers included “It helped me remember most of the information because it was fun and engaging” and “It was a fun way for learning about synthetic biology”.
The criticisms however were that it was difficult for the students to understand how the game works without having had a demonstration done in front of them, first. Because of this feedback, we aim to create instructional demonstration videos to accompany the downloadable, online version of BioMech in an attempt to make BioMech more sustainably accessible without the need for our team to be there.
We demonstrated this in a year 9 physics lesson and in both the presentation and activities with the students, we were able to highlight the physics applications alongside the biology ones. It is interesting, therefore, how well received the game was to both the teacher and the students considering that prior to our lesson with them, they might have assumed that synthetic biology is a purely biology-based field. Consequently, we want to stress that BioMech is a board game that can be, and has been, used in non-biology based lessons and we think is a great resource for teachers and students to engage with the field.
Future
Having tested the board game in the Judd School, Colyton Grammar School and two separate science fairs, as well as making BioMech available to download for free, we are looking to the future, to what we can do next. We plan on making BioMech as accessible as possible, thus are looking to create a Braille overlay version of the game, so that those people with or without sight can play simultaneously, and it not affect the game. We are also looking to make versions of BioMech suitable for those suffering for colour-blindness and have instructions written in multiple languages. We don’t want to exclude anyone from playing and using BioMech in schools, as we want to encourage any and all students to take an interest in synthetic biology.
We have also sent copies of BioMech to a number of schools in the UK and even in the US. Copies were sent to The Judd School and Colyton Grammar school, as a thank you for helping us develop BioMech throughout the progress however copies were sent to St Peter’s school in Bournemouth and Bishop Wand C of E school. The teachers of these schools are going to give us feedback on how the game works and what improvements we can make to make it more accessible and engaging for students. It is our hope that we continue to improve and adapt BioMech so that it can be implemented in as many schools as possible and become an essential teaching resource for high schools wanting to learn more about synthetic biology.
Mrs Hayley Andrews of The Judd School recommended we get in touch with The Institute of Research in Schools as well as the National Science Learning Centre to give BioMech the best possible chance of becoming implemented in schools. As a ‘future use of the game’, Hayley Andrews suggested that we could use BioMech as starter educational tool for students at schools wanting to take part in iGEM. As it introduces students to the fundamental principles of synthetic biology: plasmid design, biobricks as well as essential, more complex principles of biology like mutation - it would act as an engaging resource for high schools. Consequently, after the iGEM jamboree, we hope to continue to work on BioMech in order to distribute it to as many schools that need it, and try to encourage more schools to take part in the iGEM competition. The Judd School are planning on taking part next year and we have already established good rapport and potential for collaboration in the future.
Higher Education
Synthetic biology is a new and exciting scientific field, with applications within medicine, the environment and energy. It is an interdisciplinary subject, combining biology, engineering and physics. As shown by the number of iGEM teams entering each year into the competition, the interest of both university and high school students for the subject is growing. Despite this, there is a severe lack of synthetic biology education in the UK.
Currently there is no education of synthetic biology at the University of Exeter and there are very few synthetic biology courses and modules across the United Kingdom. However, we want to target this gap in education of synthetic biology at a university level.
In response to this, we decided to create a new synthetic biology module for 2nd year students at our university. In this modules we will teach students about the creation of new biological systems and how they can be used to advance current technologies, with a focus on biosafety and kill switches. The course will also introduce students to the practical techniques commonly used in synthetic biology, with completion of the course students will be able to independently construct a biological system, such as a biosensor, from a list of parts available. The module will cover topics such as microbial growth, gene regulation, circuit design and logic gates, plasmid design, biosafety, kill switches, DNA constructs and genome integration. Furthermore, we want to help the students to improve their research skills through a student led journal club that will be run by former iGEM students.
We hope that in creating this module we can educate students about key skills, applications and problems in synthetic biology. This will help advance the subject further in the future and solve some of the problems highlighted by both the 2016 Exeter iGEM team and other iGEM teams and academics and researchers.The module will be open to second year bioscience and natural science students at the University of Exeter from 2017.
