On July 4th, a 2-hour long workshop for scholars on the use of board games to teach how to fight human and animal coronaviruses was held at the University of Bath at the event EVOKE 2023. This workshop was facilitated by the researchers Teresa Nogueira and Margarida Duarte (INIAV, I.P./cE3c) and Liliana Costa (UA, DigiMedia). 

A group of five scholars, which included professors and researchers interested in evolutionary biology, played the board game BEAT CORONA, whose main objective is to consolidate basic concepts about infectious diseases, focusing on human and animal coronaviruses by having the player maintain their assigned animal with a healthy status until the end of the game. This board game is aimed for children aged 10+ and it has a set of cards that contribute to the progress of the game: action cards with negative/positive human behaviours that determine the progress of the player; animal health cards that inform whether the player’s animal is sick or recovered, and interaction cards to be used strategically against another player.

The workshop provided participants with information on animal and human coronaviruses, the diversity of coronavirus diseases, and concepts of immunity and transmission.