Genetics is poised to revolutionize medicine and society. The amount of DNA sequence information publicly available has been doubling every 18 months for decades. By 2014, the cost to sequence individual human genomes will drop to below $1000. A trip to the doctor may soon involve decisions made on the basis of your individual DNA. Yet students and the general public are ill-suited to comprehend this revolution.

Geniverse aims to help prepare students for this future. In Geniverse, we’re building a game environment to help students see biology as an active, experiment-driven science. We’re engaging students with the tools and processes of bioinformatics in a collaborative virtual environment. Geniverse will permit students to interact as scientists and build essential skills and understandings in both genetics content and in the nature and process of science.

In order to understand the experimental nature of biology, students must join in science’s key process of argumentation – making claims and supporting them with evidence from data. Because technology, connectivity, and the need to tackle complex problems have made science more collaborative than ever, Geniverse is reflecting this reality as well. In Geniverse, students seek assistance from each other, post quandaries for other students to ponder, and divide elements of a larger problem among themselves and their classmates.

We’re working with researchers from the Jackson Labs to design a genome for the dragons and related organisms in the game that is analogous to the relationship between mice and humans. Dragons in the game have model organisms that display traits and diseases dependent upon the interaction of multiple genes. Students will conduct breeding experiments, view chromosomes, perform tests and sequence portions of virtual organisms’ DNA in their search to understand the causes of disorders and traits they see.

Students can share their data and findings easily as well. As they uncover details of larger problems, they create miniature “papers” about their findings, reference the work of others, and submit their papers to a central area for review. This direct participation in the process of science motivates students and helps them understand the nature of science. It also mirrors precisely the type of technology-rich collaboration that characterizes cutting-edge biology research today.