When Pixel art meets bioskills

Practical skills development is a core aspect of undergraduate biosciences degrees, creating graduates who can excel in a range of careers, including those that involve laboratory work. However, when we consider the global picture, it is clear that not all students have equality of opportunity to access laboratory spaces to develop these skills and so may not aspire to careers with a practical element. This project describes how we can take lessons learned during the pandemic and apply these to build skills capacity in different areas. In this case, the project described focuses on how learning pipetting and serial dilution skills can be taught outside of the classroom through a “pixel art” competition. Students at the University of Benin in Nigeria who undertook this skills training were surveyed before and after the training. In addition to increased confidence in pipetting and making serial dilutions, 79% of students who took the survey after the training said that they would be more likely to consider a career with a practical element to it than before they did beforehand. Not only this but 83% of students strongly agreed that they appreciated the opportunity to be creative: with a third of students including the creativity as the most enjoyable aspect of the training. Whilst this project focussed on one cohort of students, the potential for building skills capacity across courses now that local staff can deliver the training independent has the potential to make a significant impact on the country’s infrastructure.