中・高校生を対象とした組換えDNA実験に対する生徒の理解度と体験学習の意義

抄録

In an attempt to promote the understanding of life science, in particular DNA function, in junior and senior high school students, we have conducted a 2-day laboratory course on DNA and recombinant DNA technology in the Kanto area twice, in 2001 and 2002. We used the Biotechnology Explorer kit, available from Bio-Rad Laboratories as follows: 1) E. coli cells susceptible to ampicillin are converted to a resistant form by transformation with a DNA plasmid, pGLO, and 2) the transformed cells produce a fluorescent protein, GFP, which can be visualized by UV irradiation of colonies of cells. We also supervised an experiment where DNA is extracted from chicken liver. We analyzed the ability of the students to understand the experiments using the following three materials: 1) a written test before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the experimental course, 2) reports concerning the experiments, 3) a questionnaire. Based on these data we conclude that the majority of the students comprehended the experiments. We also discussed the significance of conducting laboratory experiments in recombinant DNA for junior and senior high school students