Illuminating Biochemistry Education with Infographics

Abstract

Students are often disengaged from biochemistry in the classroom and have difficulty relating it to everyday life. While biochemistry may seem abstract to students, the biological chemistry principles are taking place in front of their eyes every day and are crucial to life as we know it. This study sought to engage students in an infographic project to encourage interest and engagement in an undergraduate biochemistry course. Infographics have recently become a popular device in the media and popular culture. An infographic is a visual presentation of data that aims to concisely deliver information in a simple, but striking way. Students worked as teams to create an infographic on their choice of topic relating to biochemistry. These infographics were submitted as posters and presented to their classmates at the end of the semester. A short survey was given to the students to assess their interest, engagement, and educational outcomes of the project. 91% percent of students agreed that the project reinforced biochemistry concepts learned in lecture, while 100% agreed that the project was interesting and exciting to work on. Students particularly enjoyed the freedom to choose their own topics and creatively represent the biochemistry in the world around them.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.