Small fly, huge impact

Shaking epileptic flies into a seizure may not be your average biology lesson; it is however just one of the activities taking place with a group of 12 schools in Lancashire. The schools, from across mixed socioeconomic neighbourhoods, have joined together to form a collaboration with the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health to engage pupils in science and higher education.

Professor Andreas Prokop and his team have been working with Scarisbrick Hall School, from near Southport, and partnering local schools to host biology classes covering the nervous system, genetics, neurodegeneration and enzymes.

The classes have been developed by the Manchester Fly Facility as part of their droso4schools initiative and use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to teach curriculum-relevant biology topics.

Drosophila is ideal to be used as a teaching tool to convey fundamental concepts of biology, due to many human organs sharing the same common origins, serving the same purpose and often inscribed by the same genes. The flies can get drunk and become addicted to alcohol – assisting research into addiction where fly research helps to understand such diseases or conditions.

Professor Prokop said: “Since Drosophila is the by far best understood animal organism, it is ideal for teaching concepts of biology, whilst conveying the enormous importance that investigations in flies have for the biomedical sciences.”

The hands on lessons are based around the school curriculum, enabling pupils to gain a deeper understanding of their own classwork as well as how Drosophila is used in science, building their experience and encouraging careers into higher education.

Professor Prokop has written an informative blog post on communicating basic research in schools using Drosophila, on the SciComm blog.