Cell models and games for cell biology education

Luiz Edmundo V. Aguiar, Claudia M.L.M. Coutinho, Andrea Henriques-Pons, Claudia L.S. Mendes, Tania S. Cardona, Mariana Waghabi , Carolina S. Nascimento, Ricardo M. Santa-Rita, Andrea Dantas, Solange L. de Castro & Tania C. Arajo-Jorge *

SUMMARY: Modern cell biology has great challenges in the context of science data explosion: to popularise basic concepts on living cell structures and functions, introducing people to the scientific method. For 15 years we developed and performed interactive activities on cell biology in places where they commonly do never happen, such as public squares and favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Given that interactive activities are among the best tools to face this task, we used cell electron microscopic images to develop interactive models for biology education to introduce people into animal and plant cells: giant cell for museums, small models and games for school activities. The giant models were integrated into a set of direct activities with microscopes in two science museums in Brazil. They allowed the visitor to walk in a fantasy stage where he is in part an actor and in part a scientist, faced to the challenge of discovering what are those strange bodies/organelles and what are they made for. The models motivated visitors to participate in other exhibits, including microscopes, models and games. An evaluation of the impact of the whole set of cell biology activities on students, teachers, researchers, and the general public will be presented. KEY-WORDS: cell biology education, models, games

* Lab. of Cell Biology, Dept. of Ultrastructure and Cell Biology, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, FIOCRUZ, Av. Brasil 4365, Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21045-900, Brasil. e-mail: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION Cell biology is far from having an adequate pedagogy to introduce students into the explosive new concepts of modern biology. A simple survey in reference data base banks indicate that while for the key-word cell more than a 100,000 references can be found per year, when key-words cell and education or cell biology and education are searched together only about 100 or 10 references are found, respectively. As producers of basic cell biology knowledge in a third world country, we feel engaged into the challenge of science popularisation in our own field of investigation and in creating tools for school and science museums activities that could contribute to decrease this gap between science and society. This paper describes a 18-year experience of constructing cell biology activities with a team formed by researchers, post-graduate students and teachers on technical, secondary and elementary school levels. SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE A first set of activities were developed and conduced from 1983 until 1987 with a group of scientists that founded in Rio de Janeiro the Espao Cincia Viva (Space for a living science)1. It was original to get microscopes in public squares and favelas in Rio, and a co-operation with local community associations allowed a perfect integration of the activities with social events organised for special and thematic science affairs called as Day of the cell or Day of the water or Night of the sky. Young and old people were allowed to manipulate microscopes to see some previously made preparations on different types of cells, or even their own slide preparations made locally, and to observe, to draw what was seen, to talk about, learn, play or just have fun. Such activities in the public squares were always conjugated to a trip inside a cell, that was introduced with a lecture upon slide presentation of optical and electron microscope images, and that soon showed a low power of communication, since scales for the microcosmos are completely unknown for the general public. The same microscope images were then used for the construction of different cell models. In 1988 a first giant cell model was set up for the I Congress of Biotechnology and then exposed in the science museum place of Espao Cincia Viva. In 1999 a new giant model was set up in the Life Museum at FIOCRUZ2. Plant cell transmission and scanning electron microscopy micrographs were obtained to present structural details such as the cell wall, cellulose fibrils, plasma membrane, the nucleus, nuclear membrane, chromatin material, the Golgi apparatus, the endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, mitochondria, chloroplasts, microtubule networks and vacuoles. Modelling was made as close as possible from the original images, that are most commonly different from draws that are found in textbooks. In the two museums, the giant model were integrated with experiments with microscopes that allow observation of micro-organisms, cell diversity and reconstruction of the cell theory, with photo panels for re-discovering cell model details in parallel with the original images from which the model was generated. Microscopes coupled to video allow observation of cell movements and fecundating. Games and multimidia
1

Bazin, M., Costa, C.G., Filippo, D.D.R., Kurtenbach, E., Camara, M.S., Paciornik, S., Castro, S.L. & Arajo-Jorge, T.C. (1987) Three years of Living Science: learning from experience. Science Literacy Papers, Oxford, summer, pp 67-74. 2 Aguiar, L.E.V. (1998).Pesquisa e experimentao como instrumentos de motivao para o ensino e aprendizagem de cincias PhD Thesis in Molecular and Cell Biology, may 1998, IOC/ FIOCRUZ

CD-ROMs do support more information and fun on the history of microscopy and of the cell theory, the visualisation of a larger number of cell images. MORE MODELS AND GAMES FOR CELL BIOLOGY EDUCATION The intense empathy of children and adults while entering inside the giant cell model pushed us to develop more models and games using microscopic cell images as starting points. Lymphocyte and neurone models were obtained using latex balloons filled with water, in an activity were the relative size of the different organelles was not so strictly obtained but where gel/water consistency of the cell, and their main compartments can be perceived by the students and the general public. Vegetal cells that can be observed in the optical microscope focusing on leaves of the aquatic plant Elodea were used to prepare optical and electron microscopy images from which 3-D models were generated by scaling increases of 10, 40 or 100 thousand times, maintaining the relative size of each cell organelle. Besides the models, that can be more or less interactive depending on the way an activity with them is presented, the development of games leading children to play with cells is another objective of our investigations. Cellulose transparency sheets were used to reproduce optical and electron microscopy that served for plastic moulding of different organelles and relative volumetric filling on the cytoplasm. A puzzle (The cell puzzle) was develop upon optical microscope images at different magnifications, in which the goal is to assemble the individual pieces that are not cut aleatory but at the real boundaries defined by cell wall, then reconstructing the original tissue with individual cells. Another game, called The cell investigator challenges the participants to go through a tray representing the cell cytoplam, and to solve a case (e.g. the membrane case, or the mitochondria case) in which a question has to be answered by reasoning after collecting and assembling disperse information that can be obtained in cards throughout the different compartments disposed in the tray. The cards report images, experiment results, comments, tables, histories and if appropriate reasoning is made, the participant will elucidate and solve the case, just as scientists do (or secret agents do). PERSPECTIVES These initiatives are now integrated in three different fronts of interchange between scientists and society: (1) museum exhibition and activities during school visits, and (2) testing of prototypes of the games with teachers directly with their students in classrooms of different levels, and (3) inserting the practice of creating new games and models as an activity in courses and workshops designed for the training of school teachers. Evaluation of the impact of these products as tools for biology education is incorporated as projects of MSc and PhD thesis of students.