The Metabolism Game

Angol leírás

An educational game that uses Abstracts of Sciences to assist students learning the major oxidative pathways, glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. The multicolored gameboard shows these pathways with each metabolic intermediate identified by name, structural formula and number of carbon atoms. The names of the enzymes are printed on arrows that symbolize the chemical reactions of the pathways.

The players move tokens representing carbon atoms along the pathways. A molecule of a carbon compound is symbolized by a stack of the proper number of tokens. Thus glucose would have six tokens, and 3-phosphoglyceraldehyde, three.
A deck of 70 “enzyme cards” is used to regulate the play. Each card shows a reaction present on the board with the name of the enzyme. To move a molecule from one step in a pathway to the next, a player must have in hand the appropriate enzyme card. There are three enzyme cards in the deck for each reaction on the board as well as four “wild enzyme” cards which may be used to catalyze any reaction. The game makes use of ATP “currency” of three denominations: one, three and ten ATP units. The ATP is gained or lost by a player depending on the reactions being carried out as the game proceeds. The object of the game is to gain more ATP than the other players. Oxidative phosphorylation is simulated by the use of tokens representing NADH and FADH, and special cards representing oxygen. Oxygen debt is simulated whenever a player with reducing power lacks oxygen cards.