Students often struggle to interpret the abstract ways that biologists represent DNA. We developed two online interactive learning tools to help students develop the visual literacy skills that are necessary for accurately interpreting abstract representations in molecular biology. These tools use animations and gameplay that can help students learn to distinguish between the shapes and symbols that represent nucleotides, genes, and chromosomes. We will discuss scaffolding visual literacy skills into instruction to address common errors in student interpretation of representations in molecular biology. Attendees should bring a laptop to this session.
