Introductory Course in Life Science Experiments at the University of Tokyo: Development of Experimental Items and DVD Materials

Abstract

Students who received high school education guided by the new national curriculum standards, so called "cram-free education," entered universities in the spring of 2006. Anticipating the arrival of students with new educational background, members of Biology division, who take charge of "the Introductory Course in Laboratory Experiments" in the field of life science, newly developed three experimental materials for the course and also carefully refined the old contents. In this meeting, we report on the two new experiments, "Separation of photosynthesis-related proteins by SDS-PAGE", using cyanobacterium and "Diversity of plant reproduction processes", using green algae, ferns, and seed plants, and one refined experiment, "Structure of vascular bundle in angiosperms". We will also exhibit a new textbook for the experiments accompanying DVD as a new educational tool that has been developed in order to improve the course instructions.