Overview

This was a science extension project for truanting and disaffected year 11 pupils in one secondary school. The project was set up to motivate and engage the pupils by drawing them into to a communication environment that they were familiar with (computer games), and to add content that would be helpful to their GCSE coursework. The pupils were asked to make a computer game around DNA in forensics using web authoring and virtual reality programs.

Pupil Learning Objectives

· To learn about DNA and non-DNA evidence in forensic science
· To plan and create a game structure for the web
· To create text, graphics and virtual reality movies
· To work collaboratively
· To improve motivation and attendance

Project description

The project ran over two full days at the Highwire City Learning Centre. It began with a discussion with science experts of forensic evidence. The information covered where DNA was located and how scientists can test for it, and a consideration of situations where this might happen. The pupils viewed short videos made by a year 10 class in another school, where they had filmed a class science experiment on DNA technology and edited these videos into a real life situation and narrative. Viewing other work on the web by pupils of a similar age, further reinforced the information about DNA and motivated them to publish something of their own.

They then planned a structure for a computer game. First, the whole group made up a collaborative story about who was the victim, the murderer, when the murder was committed, where, why and how. They were keen to ensure that this was no easy murder to solve, or the game would be too simple. To make it more complex, they considered how many extraneous bits of DNA evidence they could produce, and where they might be left. This gave them impetus for considering DNA in less obvious places such as digested food, uncooked meat, plants, faeces, as well as the more obvious hair, bits of skin and saliva. The concretisation of the information led to laughter and interest, and helped them to make the connections between scientific information and the world around them. After the planning the pupils split into 5 smaller groups and each took a room in the flat they had decided was the scene of the crime. The pupils split up the tasks. Some created a panorama of the room as a piece of original artwork or collage and added pieces of evidence into their picture. The consideration of audience brought up discussion on how to locate the evidence, how easy it should be to find, and the importance of ensuring that the user did find all the evidence. In this way the thinking about who did it would be the hard part rather than simply searching for tiny hairs or clues that may be missed. They then put this into a VR program and created their Quicktime VR that they put onto the webpage. At the same time, other members of the group were making pages that contained a close up picture of the evidence and information about the nature of DNA in relation to the evidence and what relationship it might have to the murder. Finally, the group added narrative features and made an interactive map that located pieces of evidence with red crosses so that they would not get missed. Towards the end of the project, pupils linked up pages from an interactive block of flats, that could take them to the different rooms, the instructions, a science laboratory and a police station. In the police station they created evidence reminders and finally the solution to the mystery.

Creative thinking and behaviour: Making connections and seeing relationships

Pupils were asked to focus in a very particular way on a real-life narrative of DNA, created by them in a non-linear format, essentially building up a jigsaw puzzle. The strong sense of realism from familiar crime television dramas combined with the game format, was very motivating to a particularly disaffected group and encouraged pupils to engage with the science learning for a reason other than passing examinations.

The science information and content was developed throughout the project. There are parts of publishing within a science context that may look like art or technology or language work. The importance of this type of authoring is that it does include those aspects, but the way it includes them enhances the science learning. In this context, while they were making their environment, they were drawing a plant and knew that plants contained DNA. However, this was not useful information in terms of evidence as it would not be seen as relevant. This prompted pupils to ask about how the DNA from a plant could be changed into a state that would be confused with evidence. Ultimately this led to a discussion about digestion and whether DNA could be broken down to being unrecognisable. The process of producing media, and its connection with real life events made this project an extensive learning experience where pupils used their own questions to engage more deeply with curriculum work.

This particular group of pupils’ attendance and concentration was greatly enhanced through the project. At the end there was a product that they could use and show, giving them a sense of satisfaction and completion. Although each pupil worked on only a small part, the final product itself was linked together and quite substantial. Indeed, they could share their work, seeing each other as co-authors in their own creation.

Key features of ICT that enabled and supported pupils’ creativity

Multimodality - Pupils created a non-linear environment with multiple routes through the material. They had to define how screens would link together and the possible ways that the user would navigate. They had to take on that the user may skip sections and miss vital clues, and how their linking needed to accommodate user choice.

Quality - The multimedia used virtual reality authoring, web authoring, interactive image maps and page design. The outcome was a slick digital representation of their original artwork and text linked in a virtual environment. This was both highly motivating and gave a sense of completion of a collaborative effort in the finished product.

Interactivity - The level of interactivity created by the project meant that the pupils had a constant focus on their target audience, and often needed to adapt features, or indeed at times, storyline, to this effect. It meant that there was constant interplay between medium and message.