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Visualizing molecular biology through animation and installation art (29.6)
Author(s) -
Peterson Celeste,
Murthy Anastasia,
Swerdlow Kyle,
French Lisa,
Berkmen Melanie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.29.6
Subject(s) - contest , animation , dialog box , outreach , mathematics education , visual arts , multimedia , psychology , computer science , world wide web , art , political science , law
To promote molecular biology education to elementary school children and the general public, we have initiated a number of projects that bring the arts into traditional STEM outreach programs. Here we present two case projects of our UAN (Undergraduate Affiliate Network) chapter work in Boston and Cambridge, i) The “What is a Germ Contest?” movie and animation project and ii) Central Elements installation art project. The “What is a Germ?” contest, created and organized by ASBMB, challenges students to create a piece of art that best explains the question of what a germ is, as judged by elementary school children. We designed our script so that each UAN college student chose a germ and wrote the dialog for their part and then the whole group worked together to create a stop‐motion clay animation short. The animation approach for explaining molecular processes has received positive feedback from students. This following year, the UAN students are mentoring an inner city youth group as they develop their own video entry. The Central Elements Project, organized by the Cambridge Science Festival, pairs groups of scientists with artists to represent a chemical element in a shop front window. Students working on this project explain the science to the artist and work with them to emphasize the underlying concepts. Both of the projects described here enable students to dive deep into specific molecular biology topics and also creatively think about visually compelling ways to educate different audiences.