A biology-themed trump card game offers an interactive science communication approach educating young students about the basics of genetics and molecular biology.
As a neuroscientist-turned-science communicator, Poorti Kathpalia hoped to make science engaging and fun for young children. She realized that science-themed games could be an interactive and effective approach for communicating science. Drawing inspiration from wrestling-related trump cards that she had played as a youngster, Kathpalia set out to design a similar molecular biology-based card game.
Building up on this, Kathpalia recently launched The Gene Game through her STEM games company Vigyan Vyanjan. Specially created for high schoolers and undergraduate students, this genetics-focused card game teaches the basics of chromosome biology, gene function, and protein synthesis.
Poorti Kathpalia, the founder of STEM games company Vigyan Vyanjan designed The Gene Game as an engaging science communication approach.
Vigyan Vyanjan
To design the game, Kathpalia and Mohammed Ansaf, an intern at her company, started by scouring high school textbooks. “If you’re thinking of playing a trump card game, you need to have certain features,” said Kathpalia. “So, we started listing down the features that…[could] be quantifiable.”
Within a month, Kathpalia and Ansaf had a list of measurable metrics for a few basic genes, including their sizes, number of exons, and the chromosome number on which they occur. Equipped with the basics, Kathpalia started penning the rules, which she wanted to be simple and flexible enough for teenagers to follow.
The game begins with each player being dealt 10 cards. The first player looks at the various gene features on their first card and announces the one with the highest possible value, such as gene size. The other players check the gene size on their respective first cards.
Anybody who thinks this value is small on their card can draw another card from the pile of unused cards, hoping to get one with a larger gene size. The round ends with the player with the highest value winning all the cards. “You can decide to end the game wherever you want, and you can then count the number of cards [each person has],” explained Kathpalia.
According to Kathpalia, this biology game has important educational value. Each card carries facts stated about its respective gene, including instances where the gene function is not known. Kathpalia hopes these open scientific questions pique a sense of curiosity and discovery in young players.
“This [could] be too far-fetched, but it would be so, so great if somebody gets inspired and actually finds…some function of one of the genes which we don’t know about,” said Kathpalia. “I think games can do that to us.”
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