The Situation of Molecular Biological Materials on the Innovation in the High School Curriculum — standing with the comparison of text books adopted by main countries

Abstract

In recent years, molecular biology has been making great advances and influenced on the biologicical curricula of senior high school. The writer examined several Japanese and foreign text books for the purpose of studying these influences. These text books used for the examination were BSCS Text Books containing Blue, Yellow, Green Version and each Revised Edition, Nuffield Biology Text v, ОБЩАЯ БИОЛОГИЯ of USSR and Japanese text books published at present. There were some differences in the curriculum between these foreign text books and Japanese. The foreign text books were all composed on the basis of innovation in the curriculum of the science education. On the contrary, in the case of Japan the biological curriculum enforced since the year of 1961 remained invariably and the teaching material of molecular biology in troduced, when the textbooks were improved under the educational authorities. So in the foreign cases the place of this material were decided with the view of theoretical curriculum in which the modernization of science education performed. In most Japanese textbooks were inserted - 51 -the explanation of DNA model and its pattern of self-duplication as the background of genetic phenomena and some textbooks added the description of instruction for protein which composed all enzymes and elements of protoplasmic structures. In these books, it might be thought that the concept of DNA and RNA were not helpful for the understandings of other life-phenome nas sufficiently. Other textbooks did not illustrate this material and a few books tried to construct new curricula, but they were like to BSCS Blue version system. In the viewpoint of molecular biological theory there can be two locations in the arrangement of all materials that constructs high school biology. One is in the study of molecular level. This means that DNA material serves the building of basic concept on the life phenomena and the understanding of background for cell division. This location also means that the study of nucleic acid is carried in the early stages of whole learning systems in general. Other is in the study of inheritance, and it may be useful for the understanding the essence of genetic phenomena. For example, many students may be able to know that the thought of DNA model must be concluded through the process of inquiry to Menderism as an inevitable consequence and the partial change of DNA brings about the effect of mutation. As described here, main Japanese text books put the explanation of DNA and RNA structures on the part of chemical compounds contained in living bodies and these functions on the end of genetic learnings. Such separated location may lead the students to the study only for getting the knowledge of nucleic acids. From the standpoint of teaching method, the study of nucleic acids shows the pattern investigated by using model which gives the concept of cotinuity to the students. Moreover, main foreign examples evaluated as the innovated curriculum attach importance to the higher level of organisms such as the world biome or ecological materials as accompanied with the increasing of micro levels or molecular biological materials. It means that the study of biology contains not only the realizing mechanisms but also the recognizing the situation of living things in the natural world. The writer concluds that the teaching material of molecular biology should be reconstructed in the whole series of innovated curriculum at the theoretical standpoint and its teaching method should be also reexamined.