Difference between revisions of "Team:KU Leuven/Practices/Education"

School visits

We visited the "De Klare Bron", "Don Bosco" schools in Heverlee and the "de Grasmus" school in Leuven where we introduced children in primary school (10 to 11 years old) to synthetic biology. During the lessons we started by giving a brief introduction into synthetic biology. We continued with asking the children to play a game built around the DNA codon table. The goal was to introduce the children to DNA translation in a playful manner.

Figure 1

The codon table used during school visits. Click to enlarge

Figure 2

The Sticker code table for the game used during school visits. Click to enlarge

The game consists of two parts.
During the first part, the children are given the so called "Prof Robben" sequence. Using the DNA codon table shown in figure 1, the children translated the DNA. Colored wooden blocks symbolizing the amino acids had to be arranged into the correct protein sequence. The blocks where made in the KU Leuven's fab-lab and painted by hand ourselves.
During the second stage of the game, the children continued by mutating the sequence. The players could obtain a new sticker if the mutation matched a sequence on the sticker table shown in figure 2.

Card game