Science Cold Case - Card game

Student - Divine Offomah-

Supervisor - Katie Long

This project piece reframes the debate around adult human hippocampal neurogenesis as a hands-on boardgame style “science cold case” for an A-level biology audience. Using a physical pinboard-style demo board and a curated deck of forensic “Evidence Cards”, players investigate one guiding question: does the adult human hippocampus continue to generate new neurons? The cards present contrasting lines of evidence across methods, from historical autoradiography in rodents to human nucleotide labelling and birth-dating, immunohistochemistry with stereological counting, and modern single-nucleus RNA sequencing supported by enrichment, machine learning, and spatial validation. Players are prompted to audit each study’s methodology, markers, and sample context, then connect cards with strings labelled “supports,” “contradicts,” or “complicates.” The activity is designed to showcase why high-profile studies can disagree, highlighting issues such as tissue preservation, marker specificity, rarity of proliferating progenitors, and cross-species assumptions. Rather than delivering a single answer, the piece culminates in a justified group verdict (“yes,” “no,” or “suggestive but not definitive”) and a proposed “next steps.” With the intended outcome being to move students from ‘test-takers who memorise dogma’ to practising evidence auditing, uncertainty reasoning, and method-aware scientific argumentation.