Skip to content
Living Light

RETSA Group/Capability demonstration

A learning microsite, finished

Living Light is a Year 9–12 biology investigation into bioluminescence. It was produced as a public example of what RETSA Group can put in front of a class or a client: a high-quality, dynamic page that teaches something, rather than a brochure that promises it later.

The science is a literature synthesis with citations. The site around it — structure, interaction, motion, mobile layout, quiz, atlas — is the demonstration.

Open the investigation

A complete lesson, not a landing page

Question, hypothesis, method, published data, case studies, a scored quiz, and a bibliography. A student can present from this site; a teacher can run a period from it.

Interaction that belongs in the argument

The atlas is a set of decisions, not a gallery. The quiz explains every answer. The chart is the 2017 Monterey Bay result, plotted so a class can argue with it.

Built to be shown

Cinematic media, editorial type, and a layout that holds on a phone. The point of the demonstration is the finish — not a wireframe of what a site might one day be.

In a learning context

One period, four moves

Written for a single biology lesson. No login. No worksheet to print. The quiz score stays on the device if a teacher wants an exit ticket.

  1. 01 · 8 min

    The question

    Open with the research question and hypothesis. The three figures on the page are the claim the rest of the site has to earn.

  2. 02 · 10 min

    Chemistry and the chart

    Walk the luciferin reaction, then the Monterey Bay bars. The chart is the evidence, not decoration.

  3. 03 · 15 min

    Atlas

    Pick three lanterns. Fireflies for signalling, the bobtail squid for borrowed bacteria, Aequorea for GFP.

  4. 04 · 10 min

    Quiz

    Eight questions with explanations. Score stays on the device — useful as an exit ticket, not a high-stakes test.

By the end of the lesson

  • Explain luciferin, luciferase, and why the light is called cold.
  • Name four ecological jobs for a photon: hide, hunt, talk, startle.
  • Read a published field result (Martini & Haddock, 2017) and say what it does — and does not — prove.
  • Distinguish true bioluminescence from comb-jelly iridescence.

What this is not

It is not a pitch deck, and it is not a template with the science swapped out. It is a finished page you can send to a teacher, a student, or a client who wants to see the standard of work — longform, data, interaction, sources — rather than hear about it.

Figures such as the 76% water-column result belong to the papers listed under Sources. Images are documentary-style illustrations, not field photographs.