Educating Campus Community:
The goal of the magazine is to inform Alma College students, not just STEM students, about the significance of White-Nose Syndrome and the importance of science literacy and staying up to date with scientific news. The magazine utilizes the One Health Approach, often employed by public health scientists and veterinary researchers. The magazine describes the importance of the One Health framework and establishes the various roles of bats in the ecosystem, emphasizing their impacts on human and environmental health1. Finally, the magazine outlines the project and the goals of the project within the framework.
STEM Kits
Paper Plate Demonstration:
When presenting the designed STEM kit to elementary students from Ithaca Public Schools, a brief introduction was given explaining why bats are essential to the environment and how bats become infected with White-Nose Syndrome. Students become empathetic towards bats through the use of a prop: a stuffed animal named “Benji the Bat”. Benji helped as a friendly demonstration and representation to show the young students that bats are our friends. The STEM kit was used to explain how our research is used to help bats with White-Nose Syndrome in a way for school-age children to easily understand and get them involved in “Laboratory Experiments.” First the elementary students drew a large “Benji the Bat” on a paper plate using a Sharpie. Upon completion of the drawing, the students placed a piece of clear scotch tape over the nose, ears, and wings of the bat drawing. With a different color washable marker, the students drew dots on the tape to represent the fungus growth on the surface of the bat’s skin. Next, a spray bottle filled with water was used to spray the bat drawing once. The wet dots (representing the fungus) were wiped off the tap to demonstrate the effectiveness of the engineered treatment, successfully curing the bats. Students were able to view a clear demonstration that reflected the iGem team’s plan to implement the treatment in the bat environments.
Figure 1: Educational session presenting the STEM kit to elementary students.
Figure 2: A fourth grader's “Benji the Bat” drawing.
Contagion Game:
After the paper plate activity, the fourth graders and iGem team moved outside to play a game to demonstrate how the fungal infection gets spread from bat to bat, causing them to become extinct or “out of the game”. Through a tag-style game, one person (bat) started in the middle of the play area (the “cave”). All other students were instructed to run around the playfield until it was time to hibernate (freeze in place). Wearing a white cotton ball on their nose, the child (representing the “infected bat”) woke up early from hibernation, and attempted to tag others while they ran from one side of the playfield to the other (representing the bat's exit form the cave). Any student tagged by the “infected bat” received a cotton ball on their nose, and also became “infected”. The next round started with the uninfected bats waking up from hibernation and running around the playfield until it was time to hibernate for the next season. Each infected bat (the students with cotton balls) tagged two to three students as they ran across the field. The rounds were repeated until everyone had a cotton ball or one person was left standing. To restart the game, everybody will be given "the medicine" (take off the cotton balls) and play another round. This game helped students visualize how quickly the infection spreads through close contact, and why it is so important that a cure is developed for this disease.
Figure 3: Demonstration of the contagion game to help visualize the rapid spread of White-Nose Syndrome between bats.