New app to help children understand respiratory viruses

A new app has been designed to help Monklands children understand more about respiratory viruses.

The feature was co-created by staff from the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow School of Art as well as primary school pupils.

The timely Co-immunicate app is designed to teach kids how their immune cells protect against respiratory viruses, providing information in a fun and stimulating way.

It is part of a larger Co-immunicate collaborative project, funded by a Scotpen-wellcome Public Engagement award.

This project has enabled the researchers, school teachers and pupils to work as a team to help local communities understand more about respiratory viruses and how our immune cells defend us against them.

Aimed at pupils aged five-to-11 years, the app uses augmented reality, quizzes and a fun game in an interactive learning experience that mirrors the research conducted at the University of Glasgow.

Dr Megan Macleod, senior lecturer, said:“we wanted to create a fun and informative tool to help the pupils and the broader community understand what happens after a respiratory virus infection.

“So far the app has helped us engage and inform with pupils and attracted people when we delivered activities at the Glasgow Science Festival and shared our project with people across the globe.”

Dr Matthieu Poyade, research fellow at the School of Simulation and Visualisation at the Glasgow School of Art, added:“it was really exiting being able to engage pupils in the design of the app.

“With this approach we expect to be able to make immunology more accessible to kids, using augmented reality on widely available mobile devices”

The research, from scientists at the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, seeks to understand how respiratory infections change the cells that make up the respiratory tract, and the immune cells that move into the lung to protect it from a future attack.

To co-create the app, scientists collaborated with colleagues in the School of Simulation and Visualisation at The Glasgow School of Art.

School pupils provided creative drawings that have been used to illustrate what happens after a respiratory virus infection and to help explain what viruses are.

The youngsters also implemented voiceovers for the app to help increase accessibility and supported the developers‘road test of the app, giving lots of feedback to the team on how to make it even better.

The new app is available to download on the Apple App store.