The Co-IMMUNicate App: an engaging and entertaining education resource on immunity to respiratory viruses

Co-IMMUNicate is a multi-layered engagement project with input from academics, teachers and pupils at a Glasgow primary school. The project is designed to ensure sustained impact on the school and local community and increase knowledge of the importance of immunology research in protecting us against infectious diseases. The project aimed to enable pupils to design and build activities to teach and enthuse younger children and their families about the immune system through displays in the school and across Glasgow. Working across disciplines and ages, we have generated numerous resources and best practices. These resources include the “Co-IMMUNicate App” which uses augmented reality, quizzes and a fun game to help us more widely disseminate Co-IMMUNicate’s aims. This chapter describes the methodological and technological framework to support the development of the Co-IMMUNicate application.

We designed and developed this application to engage and excite children about immunity to infection. A co-design approach was used to incorporate ideas from the primary 6/7 school children. They provided drawings to illustrate what happens after a respiratory virus infection and additional drawings to illustrate the quizzes. The pupils have also provided application voice-overs to help increase the application’s accessibility. Their initial comments and feedback from testing the application shaped the design of it and provided them with a sense of ownership.

The application contains four main elements: an augmented reality section in which the user can learn about what happens during a respiratory virus infection; a quiz based on the learning in the first section; a second quiz that helps the user learn about how small viruses are; and an interactive game in which immune cells capture invading viruses. Users who complete the augmented reality section and the two quizzes are rewarded with a certificate