Dozens of people across the United States have fallen ill, and public health officials suspect the mystery ailment may be a food-borne disease. Patients, doctors, scientists, farmers, food processors and restaurant workers are joining forces to scientifically identify the source of the illness before it claims more victims.

Sounds like a line from a news story in recent years? Actually it’s the story line for a new 3-dimensional virtual reality educational game for high school students and their teachers, aimed at introducing students to the many facets of biotechnology. The software project, being developed by UC Davis’ Partnership for Biotechnology and Genomics Education program, was recently awarded a $1.06 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Educational game

“We’ll now be able to move into the 3-D gaming arena, using the technology that high school students commonly use in video games,” said plant pathology professor Dave Gilchrist, lead scientist on the new grant and director of the Partnership for Biotechnology and Genomics Education program.

“With state-of-the art computer graphics, we’re planning to familiarize biology students with the science of biotechnology, related career opportunities, and the educational pathways that lead to those careers,” Gilchrist said.

Working with Gilchrist to develop the software will be plant pathology professors Doug Cook and Dave Rizzo, and education coordinator Barbara Soots and computer programmer George Terry of the Partnership for Biotechnology and Genomics Education, all at UC Davis, as well as Cooperative Extension biotechnology specialist Peggy Lemaux at UC Berkeley.

DNA sequencing

The 3-D gaming software will be used to develop three modules, designed for students and teachers in advanced placement biology classes. The first module will show how DNA sequencing can be used in a forensics setting to identify the source of a food-borne illness. As students play the game, they interact with a host of virtual characters representing a broad spectrum of careers in health and medicine, research, farming and food processing.

“Not every student who uses this software program will go into a biology career but they will gain a better awareness of what biotechnology is and an appreciation for its many possibilities,” Gilchrist said.

UC Davis’ new biotech software program will includes tests to evaluate how well students have understood the scientific concepts presented in the game. The grant also will fund weeklong training sessions and evaluation sessions for some of the participating teachers.

The new software will also be adapted for use in after-school 4-H youth programs, as part of the National Science Foundation’s STEM effort, aimed at increasing the availability of computer-based curricula related to careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Gilchrist and colleagues anticipate that there will be 4,000 Web downloads of the software. The also expect to distribute 3,000 CD-ROMs of the new educational games via mail, regional workshops and national conferences.

This new project represents the latest evolution of UC Davis’ 17-year-old biotechnology education program, which has distributed its educational software globally.

Germs, fingerprinting

The program broke new ground in 1994 with its first interactive software program “Germ Wars,” explaining how viruses infect plants, then moved on to create the “DNA Fingerprinting Laboratory” software in 1998 and the “Virtual Plant Biotechnology and Genomics” software in 2007.

A related component of the Partnership for Biotechnology and Genomics Education effort is the Biotechnology in the Classroom program, funded by Novozymes, the UC Davis Office of Research, and the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. Annually, Biotechnology in the Classroom provides classroom laboratory kits and teacher training for more than 4,000 regional students from 13 different school districts. Since its inception in 1996, the Biotechnology in the Classroom program has reached more than 40,000 students.