Development and Evaluation of “Scientist Library” in Biological Science—Toward Use in School Biology—

Abstract

Science and technology developed rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century. As a result, the outcome of the latest scientific research has come to influence our life directly. It is not recent findings, but established facts, that are taught in school education. To fill the gap and introduce the present condition of science, we made a database of today’s active scientists in biology, which we call Scientist Library.

The Scientist Library consists of research topics and personal history written by 88 individual scientists. They belong to active fields of biology, including developmental biology, molecular and cellular biology, and molecular evolution. The Scientist Library can be accessed throgh the Internet and is also available as CD-ROM.

We surveyed the possible use of it in school biology. The result shows that Scientist Library can be used as an information source for guidance counselling, or as a supplementary material in class. It also shows that information about scientists currently doing research is needed in school education and the Scientist Library helps to provide it for teachers and students.

The Scientist Libarary is a new attempt to introduce science through scientists.

We propose that similar libraries should be made in other fields of science.