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Along the lines of membranes/transport/potential, it would be cool to model a hydrogen ion gradient and a generic electron transport chain and/or ATP synthase that could be used to demonstrate how gradients power things like the synthesis of ATP

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For teams that may have geneticists, ecologists, and general biologists...how cool would it be to print and compare various antifreeze proteins (https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/120) and talk about natural selection (https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/making-fittest-birth-and-death-genes) and horizontal gene transfer in vertebrates (see https://www.quantamagazine.org/dna-jumps-between-animal-species-no-one-knows-how-often-20210609/)

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In our Genetics and Molecular Biology course, we have students predict where nondisjunction may occur based on the genotypes of the parents.  Having models for students to be able to perform nondisjunction and where it may have happened would be really helpful for students to be able to learn this concept. This may not need high-tech TTT and instead could be used with Wiki sticks or something similar.

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I saw an evolution board game on Amazon which involved a lot of sort of Pokemon-style cards, but it looked boring (and also maybe not very biologically accurate). It could be cool to make a dynamic board game with various 3D-printed pawns that could simulate population-level changes (and maybe also allele frequency).

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I think it would definitely be possible to create a simple circuit to be triggered by an external stimulus, possibly opening a gate or triggering a different function. Could be used for a ton of different things.

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Students can't visualize this system well. There are a lot of glands and hormones to keep track of as well as know the tissues and the effect on the tissues.  Create the glands, target tissues, and have students circulate the hormones and 'see' the effect on the target tissue with a light (red/green) that would indicate the change in the tissue.
Donna Hoefner

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NMDS and PCoA plots come up a lot in ecology research, and students tend to be wildly intimidated by them (whether they're running the analysis themselves in R, or interpreting figures in a published article). I try to explain the basics, often using analogies; but it would be hugely helpful to have a physical representation of how we use computers to "collapse" / simplify a hyperdimensional dataset. Claire and I initially imagined something like this toy (though I would like to incorporate some sort of "snap and fold" features) https://tedcotoys.com/product/original-hoberman-rainbow-sphere/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwzYGGBhCTARIsAHdMTQzxsB0D2umwPr3fINuyZSNE0U74piH9s-5I8-doWYo2nbo8zaXKZzUaApa8EALw_wcB

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I'm interested in combining low and high technology TTTs.  For example, I already do a low-tech translation activity with paper daisy chains.  I would love to combine that with a protein-folding activity that involves bells and whistles!

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Plasma membrane and transport in and out of cells

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Plasma membrane and transport in and out of cells

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Students struggle with the many options that ions and other molecules move in and out of cells.  It would be great to have a plasma membrane model where we can add the various types of transporters/channels and/or show diffusion, types of active transport throughout the course. Allowing them to move the parts through the membrane or through the channels, like beans or something through a tunnel. Add gates as needed and change the size of the molecules, or add charges.
Donna Hoefner

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Plate tectonics for Lynette's ENV 121 students

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Plate tectonics for Lynette's ENV 121 students

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Just finished working on simple plate tectonics (convergent, divergent, transform plate boundaries) and I could see an interactive model helping students understand this concept.

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Resting membrane potentials, action potentials, etc.

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Resting membrane potentials, action potentials, etc.

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I'd love to use/adapt the already developed ion channel to help students visualize when an ion channel opens or closes in reference to an action potential. It would be great if we could color code them on some form of membrane so that students could visualize when Na channels open in context of K+ channels. We could even bring in the Na/K ATPase and equilibrium potentials and movement of ions across a membrane. This is something that I teach right away in my A&P class and this concept is revisited frequently throughout the class.

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There's no good set of images that do the structures justice. They can't seem to wrap their minds around the cellular vs extracellular fibers and ground substance for most of the connective tissues. It would be great to have models that they can interact with and build like legos so that they can see the similar parts that overlap. Donna Hoefner

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Even after 2 semesters of AP, students seem to be confused on what happens, where it happens, and how it happens. This could be an expansion of the karyotype, but a simple version adding the spindle fibers, centrioles, etc so that they can move the parts themselves, producing 2 vs 4 cells, the latter of which would have to have DNA that could mix/exchange.
Donna Hoefner

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CFCs and Ozone for Lynette's ENV students

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CFCs and Ozone for Lynette's ENV students

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I am interested in creating an interactive model to show how CFCs break down ozone. I've found students are not quite getting this concept from textbook graphics or my drawings on the board.

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Protein folding/shape and effect of mutations (Kris Kubow)

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Protein folding/shape and effect of mutations (Kris Kubow)

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Students have a hard time connecting changes amino acids (ultimately DNA mutations) to changes in protein shape. I know that there are lots of resources for printing actual proteins, but I'm more interested in something reductionist that models the concept of protein folding (hydrophobic AA inside, etc.) and the effects of mutation.

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I haven't fully decided or thought out what this could be used for, but it could be another way to represent gut models or possibly BONES! With the 3D printer, I think it may be possible to create pieces that slide/move/connect with each other in a way where the entire shape is flexible, but still rigid. Think: wooden snakes that are made of little segments and if your skin gets caught in it while it bends it pinches you, but made out of plastic and the pieces fit into each other. I was thinking of using it for gut models first and sort of making a track out of them for something (ping pong ball) to travel down it, but it could certainly be used for bones and it could be used to make a model that can be changed according to function or evolution.

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create fragments with a lock and key fit for different color coded restriction enzymes to highlight the differences between linear and circular maps and allow students to manipulate single and double digest comparisons to create restriction maps

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First semester Biology students always struggle with these concepts. I typically resort to slide presentation graphics and flow charting on the whiteboard. 3D TTT would help students' understanding and appreciation of this concept.

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This may relate back to respiration but I would like a model to show enzyme function and reactions and if possible show kinetics ~ less energy or require energy.

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Antibody - antigen interactions and vaccine efficacy

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Antibody - antigen interactions and vaccine efficacy

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I find that students struggle with antibody structure, where and how an antibody interacts with an epitope (or larger antigen) and then how an antibody modulates the immune response. These are concepts that I teach in at least two of my classes on differing levels of complexity. I am envisioning four TTT as part of this lesson: 1) an antibody (IgG) with heavy and light chains with something to denote disulfide bonds. 2) An antigen with numerous epitopes (perhaps we could use SARS CoV-2), 3) the receptor for which a virus uses to infect cells (again, ACE-2) and 4) an immune cell with Fc receptors that help to visualize how the immune cell interacts with the antibody. I envision the POGIL-style activity to be broken into these four components to guide students through antibody structure, interaction with antigen, neutralization, and then immune cell interaction.

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3D print structures for sugar, amylose, amylopectin, and cellulose color-coded to match sites in GUT MODELS where each is metabolized. Different bacteria can digest (unlock?) different carbohydrate bonds (i.e., alpha-1,4 / alpha-1,6 / beta-1,4), creating fragments that students match to different fermentation projects. >> Next step: Operation-style board, where students add a fermentation product to see the physical and behavioral effects on the host body?

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Respiration is a challenge for students. I would like to develop a project around the pathway.

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Use different colors and types of fabric, sewn inside-out, to represent the textures and digestive functions of the stomach (sequins or other, TBD), small intestine (thin rib corduroy), cecum (velvet), and large intestine (wide rib velvet). Each gut site will have a zipper opening so students can open and explore the gut (volume and surface area). Students will act out peristalsis and record the time it takes to push a "bolus of food" (ping pong ball) through the length of the gut. Balls will be either plain or coated with a texture to mimic different passage rates associated with different foods.

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What are some concepts from classes that you've taken that you think might benefit from a TTT-based approach? What are things that have been hard to visualize from images? What are processes that have been hard to understand? Comment below to share.

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Online resources for STL files for 3D printing

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Online resources for STL files for 3D printing

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Here is a Google Doc with links to websites where you can download STL files that you can directly print, or tinker with and modify. (Feel free to add to this list!)

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Here is a link to a Google Doc with descriptions and photos of existing TTTs built at NC State (along with links to activities).

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To the right is a document describing and showing the TTTs and paired activities we've created so far at NC State. Below is a list of websites where you can download existing 3D print files. You can use these to spark ideas for your models, or you can even start with one of these models as a base for your project -- you can take something that already exists and modify it (either the TTT, the activity, or both) to fit your needs.