Abstract:

The project titled "Study of plant physiology through gamification (PHYSIOGAM)" is an educational innovation project for higher education that we are developing based on gamification and information and communication technologies (ICTs). PHYSIOGAM aims to improve the quality of the teaching-learning process in plant physiology, more specifically in water relations and gas exchange. Students have difficulties in understanding the biophysical processes and environmental conditions that determine gas exchange in plants, which in many cases, lead them to lose interest in the subject.

The main objectives of this project are:
(i) to develop simple simulators in which students can change plant functional traits and environmental conditions to see how they affect gas exchange in plants;
(ii) to promote intrinsic motivation and active learning of students by making the classroom experience more dynamic; and
(iii) to improve students' competences in the use of technologies to understand and solve environmental problems.

We have created a simple interphase coded in Visual Basic that enables students to run a state-of-the-art plant response model based on plant hydraulic traits. We hope that the simulator will help students to experimentally test how plants open and close their stomata to regulate water loss and photosynthetic assimilation. The interphase allows students to change environmental variables (solar radiation, air temperature, air relative humidity, soil moisture, and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration) to see how these stimuli affect stomatal aperture and, subsequently, transpiration, photosynthesis, and percent loss in hydraulic conductivity (expressed as percentage, it is an indicator of water stress), all of them, questions explained in class. The students can also select species with different functional traits (leaf area, resistance to dehydration, photosynthetic capacity) to see how these responses vary. We then use an online application for running a quiz competition for students, in which we ask how plant responses vary when we select different species or environmental conditions. We evaluate how implementing the utilization of the simulator plus gaming affects students’ satisfaction and grades.

Keywords:

Plant physiology, gas exchange, gamification, information and communication technologies, environment, simulator.