Web-animations: An interdisciplinary approach for biology and information technology students

Interdisciplinary collaboration is becoming increasingly important not only to the scientific community but also to the corporate environment since many real world problems involve collaboration from professionals across disciplines. In this work, we engaged students using a multidisciplinary project that encompassed students from two Information Technology (IT) courses and one Biology course. Students from these courses collaborated to create animations aimed to demonstrate biology concepts. Students worked in teams throughout the semester and presented the completed animation in class. The finished animations were later used in biology classes as teaching and learning tools. The purpose of this project is to create an active learning environment that promotes interdisciplinary collaboration. By the end of the project, students learn to collaborate and communicate effectively with peers of other STEM disciplines, by creating a biology web-based animation as end-product. In this way, they learn to appreciate the value of interdisciplinary teamwork and also realize that animations can be useful teaching and learning tools. Preliminary survey data show positive student feedback regarding learning from peers, using technology and interdisciplinary teamwork. This paper shares our experience in planning and implementing the project.