What is the Alleles Game?

The Alleles Game is an arcade-style sorting game that allows students to test their knowledge of genetic traits, in particular the alleles that make up a person’s hair color, eye color, body type, etc. Players select gas bubbles that are floating up from the bottom of the swamp, and contained in each bubble is either a graphic of an allele pair, or words indicating hair/eye color. The player then “sorts” these bubbles into their respective logs: Homozygous Dominant or Recessive, or Heterozygous. The bubbles move fast, so the players must be able to determine what alleles belong in which logs fast, or suffer a low score.

What Are the Current Applications of Alleles Game?

The Alleles Game was a developed and designed in partnership with MdBio, a science education group dedicated to improving science education in the Baltimore Country School System. Genetics, and specifically, genetic sexual traits, has always been a difficult subject to explain in a normal classroom setting. The Alleles Game allows this complication scientific concept to be taught in a more engaging and interactive manner.