Author: МУРТАЗОВА МАРИЯ МАХАММЕДОВНА, ТУЛАГАНОВ ДМИТРИЙ ДЕНИСОВИЧ | MURTAZOVA MARIA, TULAGANOV DMITRY
Annotation
This article is devoted to how, with the help of the subject content of the biology lesson of the school course and the game format in scheduled and extracurricular classes, to contribute to the formation of a sustainable future of the planet. The article discusses how the subject matter of biology resonates with the SDGs and the skills of the XXI century that are necessary for any person both for personal and professional realization and for the preservation of the planet, and also demonstrates how games in theory and in practice can reveal this developing and educational potential to make an image a sustainable future is real.
The purpose of this work is to talk about how the use of game learning in biology lessons can contribute to the formation of a student's personality in the spirit of sustainable development and thereby contribute to a sustainable future of the world.
Tasks:
1. Talk about the ideological content of the SDGs in the framework of the biology subject of the school course;
2. Talk about the principles of gamification that contribute to the formation of a student's personality in the spirit of the SDGs;
3. Share practical ideas and recommendations on conducting game classes for a sustainable future.
Keywords: SDGs, skills of the XXI century, gamification, biology, sustainable future, education.
Of course, today few people living on the planet have never heard about what is happening to it and humanity and what global risks are hanging over us. Thus, experts from many countries of the world note among the largest risks of the XXI century the risks associated with such phenomena as:
• the collapse of the economy due to the emergence of artificial intelligence and innovative technologies that can replace humans;
• Cost of living crisis;
• Massive natural disasters related to anthropogenic climate change;
• Social polarization due to the lack of institutions of tolerance, nationalism and xenophobia;
• The spread of cybercrime;
• Direct military confrontation over the planet's dwindling resources, etc. [1]
To counter global risks and shape a sustainable future, the UN has developed the concept of the SDGs – that is, the Sustainable Development Goals. This concept was formulated in the form of 17 global goals, namely:
1. Poverty eradication;
2. Elimination of hunger;
3. Good health and well-being;
4. Quality education;
5. Gender equality;
6. Clean water and sanitation;
7. Low-cost and clean energy;
8. Decent work and economic growth;
9. Industrialization, innovation and infrastructure;
10. Reducing inequality;
11. Sustainable cities and human settlements;
12. Responsible consumption and production;
13. Combating climate change;
14. Conservation of marine ecosystems;
15. Conservation of terrestrial ecosystems;
16. Peace, justice and effective institutions;
17. Partnership for Sustainable Development [2].
As we understand it, in order to achieve these goals, full-scale educational work with the population is required, aimed at forming people's knowledge in the field of various disciplines, as well as the formation of a culture of responsible consumption and recycling, as well as educational work and training in the field of partnership and tolerance. For these purposes, UNESCO allocates huge funds and finances a huge number of various events all over the planet.
At the same time, most of these goals can be achieved in one way or another by improving the quality of teaching the subject content of a school biology course. Further, I would like to pay attention to considering this course from the point of view of the SDGs and talk about how to use games to touch on this topic in the context of biology.
For example, Goal 1 is the eradication of poverty. This goal is not directly found in the biology course and a separate topic, of course, is not allocated to this topic. However, in biology, there is also a condition similar to poverty – a shortage of nutrients and energy. For example, ATP has long been presented to children in a simplified form as a "bargaining chip" of the body, thanks to which almost any physiological activity of cells is carried out. In the context of studying the topics of organic substances or metabolism and energy, which are traditionally held in different countries, usually either in 8th grade in the section man and his health, or in grades 9-10 in the section of general biology, we can give an analogy with poverty in society, give the causes of energy deficiency in the human body and a parallel of this phenomenon in society, thus talking about corruption or, for example, patronage.
Nevertheless, we are well aware that if we leave all this in words, then the effect of such comparisons, although there will be, will still be relatively low both in the context of emotional response and in the context of involvement in the topic. The solution to the problem may be the introduction of game forms of learning into teaching, because, as many researchers note, games in education significantly increase involvement in the process and stimulate the implementation of both the educational and learning context of the lesson [3] [4] [5] [6].
So, for example, economic strategies are excellent for training the skills of caring for finances and their multiplication, as well as for training the skills of calculating the energy intensity of organic substances (which are important for solving the tasks of the biology exam material), for example, we can imagine the body as one big city, and various tissues and organs as elements of the infrastructure of this city. We can give each student a role in this scheme and assign an appropriate task – to accumulate the maximum amount of energy in the form of ATP, but at the same time, with an increase in ATP production, the level of toxin production in the body and the load on neighboring organs may also increase. Students will need to cooperate with each other in order to develop the body evenly and conserve limited resources.
This version of the board game will look especially interesting if you apply it not in the form of a physical, but in the form of a digital object, the graphics elements for which and the simplest code in Python can generate a neural network. It is very likely that in the future teachers will do exactly this due to the fact that the capabilities and accessibility of neural networks will increase every year.
A similar game is quite suitable for the implementation of education in the spirit of SDG 2, however, the topics of hunger can also be raised within the framework of topics about the physiology of the human body, for example, about its physical limits of endurance, as well as in the context of, for example, genetic engineering, which can solve the problems of poverty and hunger by creating GMO organisms with specific properties, the maintenance and care of which will be much cheaper than today, and their nutritional value is much higher.
For example, as a game for children for extracurricular activities, you can offer project work in order to come up with the idea of a GMO organism that would be in demand in agriculture, and in order to increase engagement, an element of gamification can serve, for example, a description of the task using storytelling methods and thereby creating an image of a role-playing game, for example, scientists saving the planet from global famine or, let's say, the potato plague. Thus, this game can serve not only as a "mouthpiece" for the goal of eliminating hunger and the opportunity to once again voice and work out the knowledge gained, but also the opportunity to create a project with children and practice business speech and official documentation, as well as search for sources of information. This is a very important aspect of implementing the concept of a sustainable future insofar as all of the above contributes to the formation of competencies and skills of the XXI century in a child [7], namely critical and creative thinking, problem solving competence skills, as well as skills for independent critical assessment of information sources and teaches them not to be afraid to transform the world with their ideas.
Goal number 3 is not just a hotel topic, but a whole biology course called "Man and his health" or "Human Anatomy and Physiology", through the content of which the most common human pathologies and methods of countering them are revealed. It is clear that since the course takes a fairly voluminous number of hours, there are a lot of games that can be implemented in the learning process within the framework of this course. For example, the simplest thing that can be thought of is a role–playing game between a doctor and a patient, however, more complex forms can be implemented, for example, interactive presentations and videos with educational content can be used as a playing field.
Goal number 4 is obvious and understandable from the point of view of teaching the subject, so there is nothing much to disclose here.
Goal 5 can be touched upon in the context of revealing the topic of evolutionary teaching, where it is possible to demonstrate the absence of differences in anatomical structure (with the exception of the reproductive system and a number of adaptive adaptations) between men and women. In addition, a good example of a successful gender equality strategy is the huge number of women scientists who have made a huge contribution to the development of biology and science in general. For example, you can play a role-playing game with children and put on a scene from the biography of one of the female scientists to show how hard it was to make discoveries before and what problems women face in science.
Expanding the topic of digital games, one of the promising areas here may be the creation of a bank of visual novels based on the biographies of such great women scientists who will help realize the goal even in conditions of distance or home–based learning.
Regarding clean water and sanitation, this topic can be raised in the context of both the use of microorganisms for desalination or purification of reservoirs from chemical pollutants, and the use of plant filters for water purification due to the phenomenon of selective root absorption and the needs of plants for certain macro and microelements. In the context of game learning, you can develop this topic and play with students as journalists of a local TV channel and during an excursion to a water treatment plant ask children to collect as much interesting material as possible about workers of water treatment plants or biological purification methods used at a treatment plant. In this way, it is possible to develop both media literacy and communication and cooperation abilities in children, as well as refresh and strengthen students' knowledge in the context of the topic of water purification.
Goals 7, 8 and 9 are interrelated in the context of educational biology content, since all ideas about urban improvement using biological methods also include the creation of alternative energy sources or lighting, which in turn entails the creation of new jobs and the corresponding strengthening of the economic condition of cities, as well as contributes to their rational consumption of energy resources. Here, again, both the method with a board/computer economic game and a city, which can also be presented in a more traditional form in an ecology course (11th grade), and the project method with the inclusion of gamification elements are more relevant than ever. For example, in the context of goal number 7, children can be invited to analyze the concept of bioluminescence and invite them to tell and show why certain organisms are not suitable for the role of "biological lamps" and how this situation could be changed, etc.
Reducing inequality is probably one of the stumbling blocks of biology as a science, because, from a biological point of view, competition, and not always competition of equal individuals, is a phenomenon necessary for the evolutionary process. Meanwhile, in the context of bioengineering, eliminating that very inequality is one of the priority goals. So, within the subject of biology in grades 9-10, you can talk about the achievements of science in bioprosthetics and regenerative medicine, thanks to which today you can create special structures – scaffolds, and then fill them with stem cells and thereby stimulate the growth of various organs and tissues by the body itself. Thanks to these methods, it is possible, for example, to restore mobility and functional equality to children with developmental disabilities of a bodily nature.
It is very difficult to imagine a separate game in which one could touch on the topic of inequality in biology lessons. Nevertheless, the game itself can be an effective unifying factor in itself [8] [9] [10] and it especially looks amazing if you involve children with special needs in such games and even give them one of the key roles in the game, however, with the subtle expectation that the child not only will he cope, but he will also show himself in the best way.
How the subject matter of biology resonates with rational consumption and the fight against climate change can be described even in a separate article, and nevertheless, there are more than enough games on this topic and their enumeration can also take a long time and volume, although, for example, we consider it advisable to give a couple of the most interesting examples in our opinion [11] [12] [13].
Meanwhile, it is interesting to focus here on how through biological games you can contribute to the formation of legal literacy of students and thereby contribute to the promotion of goal number 16. The most banal example may also be the application of project work in the field of searching for laws and regulations regarding environmental support for your country. The plot-role-playing games of the "Human Trial" type have a more playful format, however, they have a very small amount of precisely the legislative aspect and the aspect of educating legal culture. And in fact, in our opinion, it is not the game form that seems more attractive here, but the form of the report with elements of gamification. For example, students can be invited to investigate and find out what specific laws about nature exist in different legal systems of the world and thereby show the diversity of attitudes towards the natural resources of the planet.
Conclusion
Thus, the use of games in the context of a biology course can significantly contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the education of students in the ideas of the SDGs, countering global threats of the 21st century and the development of competencies and skills in children of the 21st century. Biology games can relate not only to goals directly related to biology and ecology, but also contribute to the development of goals only indirectly related to this academic subject, for example, in educating children in the spirit of gender equality, equality of material and physical, and even the development of legal literacy and communication skills for partnership in the field of SDGs.