Learning through playing.

We used a number of effective approaches that were suitable for any age to make learning about treating and preventing infections fun.

Each activity was accompanied by a comprehensive infoboard explaining the scientific background, and facilitators adopted the concepts according to the age of the players.

1) Antimicrobial resistance tin can alley

This was to raise awareness of the consequence of antimicrobial resistance for treating bacterial infections. Players first had to knock over a pile of cans representing susceptible bacteria using ‘antibiotic’ bean bags, to learn about the effectiveness of antibiotics. Next, a facilitator or co-player then waved a shield in front of the cans, demonstrating the difficulty of treating an infection caused by antibiotic resistance bacteria.

Curiously, some players quickly discovered that working as a team and throwing multiple bean bags at the same time overcame the person waving the shield - thus mimicking current approaches of treating critically ill patients with a combination of several antibiotics at the same time!

2) Plasmid ring toss

Bacteria have a unique way of passing on traits to neighbouring cells of the same, or even other species, by being able to transfer small rings of DNA (plasmids) containing genetic information such as antibiotic resistance genes. To understand how antimicrobial resistance spreads, players had to throw plastic rings at a large scale bacterial model. Even if especially younger players had never heard of plasmids before, or even DNA and genes, they easily grasped the concept of how bacteria can send rings of ‘information’ to each other!

3) Immune system ballpit

This activity was aimed to explain how the immune system detects and fights ‘bad germs’ (a spiky ball) amongst all other structures our body is constantly in contact with. This could either be to explain what happens when a pathogen invades the body (the player) early in infection, or demonstrate the effect of vaccination when the body produces specific antibodies and immune cells protecting us from ‘bad germs’.

Players simply had to find the spiky ball amongst 1,500 normal balls. Sounds easy - but not when you are blindfolded!

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