The power of narrative storytelling: Using comics to bring microbiology concepts to life

By Sarah Anderson, PhD

For undergraduate students taking introductory microbiology courses at UBC, comics are as common in the classroom as they are in the newspaper.

In a new study published in the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, a team of educators in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology report that integrating course material into a narrative comic strip format is a powerful way to help students grasp challenging microbiology concepts. 

“This approach bridges scientific concepts to the real world and makes them more accessible for all students,” said Karen Smith, a lecturer emeritus in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. 

While she was teaching the course BIOL 112 (Biology of the Cell), Smith called upon Craig Kornak, an artist and the Undergraduate Programs Manager in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, to create cartoonish microbe characters that she could embed throughout her lectures. She observed that students responded positively to these caricatures and wondered if she could implement this approach in another course she taught, MICB 211 (Foundations in Microbiology). Students in MICB 211 were completing the assigned readings before class, but many of them struggled to extract important take-home messages and apply them to case study scenarios. 

Comics can foster a firmer understanding of complex ideas as they require active engagement to interpret the images and text and draw connections between the different panels. Additionally, information presented in the form of humorous, character-driven stories is often easier to recall than a series of facts.

To implement this tool in MICB 211, Smith assembled a team with an array of diverse perspectives from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, including Kornak, Science Education Specialist Dr. Kirsty McIntyre, Assistant Professor of Teaching Dr. Evelyn Sun, graduate teaching assistant Kabir Bhalla and undergraduate academic assistant Poppy Chaiboripan. They first asked students enrolled in the course to indicate which concepts they still found confusing after completing the reading assignments. They then collaborated to create three comics specifically to address these concepts, which focused on bacterial surfaces and structures and their role in antimicrobial resistance, bacterial metabolism, and biofilm formation. The team made these comics available to students alongside the corresponding textbook readings and then conducted surveys in which students evaluated how helpful the comics were in supporting their learning. 

Overall, the results indicated that incorporating the comics with the textbook readings enhanced students’ understanding of challenging concepts, improved their ability to identify key takeaway points, and increased their curiosity about the microbial world. Students also reported that they found the comics to be more engaging and memorable than the readings.

“Our findings highlight the need to discover diverse approaches to educating students beyond traditional expository text,” said Smith. “Comic narratives are just one of many innovative tools that instructors could use to present microbiological concepts.” This approach aligns with the Universal Design for Learning framework, which aims to dismantle barriers to learning by offering multiple formats through which to engage with course content. 

In addition to developing more comics in the future, the team hopes to evaluate how engaging with comics influences deeper mastery of the material long-term and to assess how presenting content in this accessible, informal way influences students’ sense of belonging in science. They also plan to explore the broader effectiveness of comics as an educational tool in various scientific disciplines and course types (i.e. introductory versus upper-level).

The Narrative Learning Project was funded by UBC Science’s Skylight: Science Centre for Learning and Teaching and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.