What can fruit flies tell us about virtual reality exercise?

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Robert J. Wessells at Wayne State University, in the US, who has been studying how fruit flies can be ‘tricked’ into getting fit without exercising. This discovery has left him asking if we could do the same in humans.
• This resource also contains interviews with RJ and a couple of his students. If you or your students have a question for them, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. They will reply!
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on RJ’s research, and tasks them to explore other discoveries resulting from model organism research.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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