Designing with Genes in Early Childhood: An exploratory user study of the tangible CRISPEE technology

Abstract

Biodesign, a speculative and creative offshoot from the field of bioengineering, is an area of STEM that is growing in popularity in education settings, primarily because of its unique interdisciplinary lens that connects STEM disciplinary knowledge and creative design practices. Although this trend is currently limited to middle school, high school, and higher education, prior research suggests that children 5 years and older, may yield long-term gains from exploring developmentally-appropriate concepts from novel STEM fields. Although there is little research on educational technologies or resources to support young children’s curiosity and learning in this novel domain, some research suggests that young children may already be forming preconceptions about genetics and biology (e.g., from popular media). Tangible technologies, which provide children qualitatively new, developmentally appropriate ways to engage with ideas and techniques, have been shown to support children’s engagement with foundational ideas relevant to biodesign, including the engineering design process. By applying developmentally appropriate constraints to our technology development (e.g., through frameworks such as the Positive Technological Development), the research team developed and evaluated a novel tangible technology called CRISPEE to introduce young children to concepts of biology and engineering. This article describes an experimental pilot study to investigate (1) how young children interact with the CRISPEE technological prototype, and (2) what prior knowledge the average child might bring to an educational biodesign activity. Implications for ongoing technology development and developmentally appropriate learning goals are discussed.