Using Analogy Role-Play Activity in an Undergraduate Biology Classroom to Show Central Dogma Revision.

For the study of biology in an undergraduate classroom, a classroom exercise was developed: an analogy role-play to learn mechanisms of gene transcription and protein translation (central dogma). To develop the central dogma roleplay exercise, we made DNA and mRNA using paper sheets, tRNA using a wire dress hanger, and amino acids using Lego® blocks (Lego System A/S, Denmark). Students were studying in the course of mathematics, physics, or chemistry, so biology was not among their usual studies. In this exercise, students perform the central dogma roleplay and respectively act out nuclear matrix proteins, a transcription factor, an RNA polymerase II, an mRNA transport protein, nuclear pore proteins, a large ribosomal subunit, a small ribosomal subunit, and several amino-acyl tRNA synthetases. Questionnaire results obtained after the activity show that this central dogma role-play analogy holds student interest in the practical molecular biological processes of transcription and translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]