Inspiring school children with chemical biology
Dr Wael Houssen from University of Aberdeen has developed an initiative to inspire primary school children with chemical biology.
By Dr Wael Houssen
Children and even some adults often consider chemistry a discrete physical discipline with little or no connections with life sciences. This initiative, supported by a small grant from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s outreach fund, aims to inspire the proportion of children who prefer biological subjects with chemistry – by showing them how chemistry and biology are interlinked and how chemistry could fulfil their passion for understanding biological phenomena. It also provided school teachers with ideas and a range of effective curriculum-enriching activities to inspire their students in new and engaging ways.
Although chemical biology looks more suitable for mature children at secondary school level, in effect there is a lot that can be presented to younger children. It is also important to target children at a very early age when the impact of such activities is maximal.
Experiments include the use of chromatin dyes to see chromosomes at different stages of mitotic division, the isolation of DNA from fruits. It will involve the use of physical models and Lego parts to explain how the information on DNA is translated into proteins and how DNA and protein folds in our body.
Some fun activities include observation and monitoring of heat-induced denaturation of proteins while making different shaped boiled eggs. Then an explanation of a similar analogy with straightening hair was provided. All experiments are designed to stress on the chemical side while providing more understanding of the biological phenomena.
The children were excited and got the concept that DNA is a chemical substance that carries the information on which protein is going to be produced in our body. They enjoyed solving chemistry crossword and puzzles where clues were written as DNA sequences. They translated the codons in these sequences into amino acid single letter code and use these letters to solve the puzzle.
It was really impressive to see the children at Broomhill reflecting on what they have learnt during some of these events. They created the video below.
Science_Day from Claire Aitken (BM Teacher) on Vimeo.