Racing Academy: A case study of a digital game for supporting students learning of physics and engineering

Racing Academy is a digital game, which is specifically designed to engage and motivate students in science and engineering. The aim of this chapter is to report a case study where the authors evaluated how effective Racing Academy is at supporting students’ learning of science and engineering. The study involved 219 students from five different courses in three further and higher educational institutions. They were given a pre-test a week before they started using Racing Academy. It consisted of an assessment of the students’ knowledge of engineering or physics and motivation towards engineering or physics. A week after they had used Racing Academy, they were given a post-test, which was the same as the pre-test, but it also included a measure of how motivating they found Racing Academy. The project found that after playing Racing Academy there is an increase in students’ knowledge and understanding in all five of the courses in which Racing Academy was used. The students found Racing Academy motivating to play, and 95% thought that Racing Academy was successful. The implications of these findings and the lessons learnt are discussed

A wild derived quantitative trait locus on mouse chromosome 2 prevents obesity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The genetic architecture of multifactorial traits such as obesity has been poorly understood. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis is widely used to localize loci affecting multifactorial traits on chromosomal regions. However, large confidence intervals and small phenotypic effects of identified QTLs and closely linked loci are impeding the identification of causative genes that underlie the QTLs. Here we developed five subcongenic mouse strains with overlapping and non-overlapping wild-derived genomic regions from an F2 intercross of a previously developed congenic strain, B6.Cg-<it>Pbwg1</it>, and its genetic background strain, C57BL/6J (B6). The subcongenic strains developed were phenotyped on low-fat standard chow and a high-fat diet to fine-map a previously identified obesity QTL. Microarray analysis was performed with Affymetrix GeneChips to search for candidate genes of the QTL.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The obesity QTL was physically mapped to an 8.8-Mb region of mouse chromosome 2. The wild-derived allele significantly decreased white fat pad weight, body weight and serum levels of glucose and triglyceride. It was also resistant to the high-fat diet. Among 29 genes residing within the 8.8-Mb region, <it>Gpd2, Upp2, Acvr1c, March7 </it>and <it>Rbms1 </it>showed great differential expression in livers and/or gonadal fat pads between B6.Cg-<it>Pbwg1 </it>and B6 mice.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The wild-derived QTL allele prevented obesity in both mice fed a low-fat standard diet and mice fed a high-fat diet. This finding will pave the way for identification of causative genes for obesity. A further understanding of this unique QTL effect at genetic and molecular levels may lead to the discovery of new biological and pathologic pathways associated with obesity.</p