Cardboard Dinosaur: The Use of Simple Three-Dimensionality and Macroscopy Tools as a Low-Cost Strategy for Presentation of Classical Biological Themes

According to the literature, materials that explore visual effects are being more produced for teaching purposes, especially the computational ones. The application of these materials has significantly increased at different educational levels, from elementary to post-graduation. In this study, we aim to evaluate the level of student interest in the presentation of a classical theme of the biological sciences, Dinosaurs, by using Two-dimensional (2D), Three-dimensional (3D) or computational models. Therefore, we built three models of an Allosaurus skeleton including: 1) a 3D macroscopic “Dino” model (1 m per 1.5 m long) made with cardboard; 2) a 2D colorful Dino figure printed on an A4 size paper, and 3) a computational dancing dinosaur simulation, a “Virtual Dino” model, made with six sequential photographic repeated frames. A questionnaire and an in loco dynamic evaluation were created and applied to analyze the students’ preference. Thirty-seven undergraduate students of Biological Sciences and Medicine courses had their reaction (choice) filmed and analyzed after looking at these three models. The results show that there is a high preference for the 3D-macroscopic “Dino”, suggesting that visual exploration is still more attractive than a computational tool to stimulate interest in a topic. The preference for the three-dimensional macroscopic model still raises applicable perspectives and further challenges that may and should be explored in the area of science education, not only for deaf, blind and/or visually impaired people, but for each and every student.