Contest Merging Gaming with Medicine: D-Bug Game Design Challenge
The D-Bug Game Design Challenge, an innovative educational program, is engaging young minds in the realm of vaccines, viruses, and immunology. Initiated by the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago, this collaborative project is supported by Unlocking Curious Minds and Tūhura Otago Museum.
The challenge leverages the appeal of gaming to make complex biomedical topics accessible and engaging for learners. By designing games, participants actively explore how vaccines work, the impact of viruses, and public health concepts in an immersive and collaborative environment.
The Science of Medicines project, a collaboration between the University of Otago and Tūhura Otago Museum, plays a significant role in this venture. The program offers resources such as "Fighting Infection - Introduction", "Antimicrobial Resistance - a context for learning", and "Gaming for learning", which provide insights into the science behind infectious diseases and vaccination.
Workshops hosted by Tūhura Otago Museum support young people in their game development, offering options for clay model making, diorama building, and digital game creation. Participants were encouraged to be creative, with viruses taking various shapes and modes of transmission and being challenged by white blood cell-like creatures or vaccines delivered in unique ways.
Antonia Hoeta, a microbiologist and a gamer, is a member of The Science of Medicines team. She emphasizes that the primary goal of the D-Bug Game Design Challenge is for children to learn about viruses, rather than creating a playable game.
The game development process is documented in the activity "Game design for viruses and vaccines". Workshop participants were able to create 3D images of their clay models, transfer them to Blender, and then into their digital worlds.
The D-Bug Game Design Challenge also offers related activities such as "The wars within", which compares the human immune system to a castle protected by knights, "Drama with microbes", which uses drama to model science ideas about immune response to pathogenic microorganisms, and "Making digital space debris clean-up games", which engages learners about the problem of space junk using Scratch.
Throughout the workshops, there were numerous discussions with parents and caregivers, and the young participants shared their growing knowledge with their families. The Science of Medicines team created colorful infographic fact sheets to help participants understand key science concepts and content vocabulary.
By fostering community understanding of viruses and vaccines through creative and interactive means, the D-Bug Game Design Challenge encourages scientific understanding and health literacy among young people, making the complex world of immunology more approachable and engaging.
- The D-Bug Game Design Challenge, an educational program focused on education-and-self-development and learning, also offers online-education resources such as "Fighting Infection - Introduction", "Antimicrobial Resistance - a context for learning", and "Gaming for learning", which provide insights into the science behind infectious diseases and vaccination.
- In the D-Bug Game Design Challenge, young minds are not only encouraged to learn about vaccines and viruses but also to apply this knowledge creatively, designing games to represent viruses in unique ways and create digital worlds for immunology concepts, fostering a blend of online-education and self-development.
