Abstract
High-level science education has two purposes: (1) providing a science education curriculum for gifted students; and (2) finding gifted students. To achieve purpose (2), we developed a high-level science education program. In this program, we selected an emerging area of science and technology-pluripotent stem cells-as a topic to stimulate the students' curiosity, cooperation, and intellectual rigor, which are considered factors that characterize the research community. Students were expected to acquire knowledge about science, i.e., the progress of advanced research and research based on testing hypotheses. In addition to introducing the developmental process of the program, this paper also presents an evaluation of it. This program was developed in collaboration with researchers engaged in science communication and those involved in stem cell research as well as high school teachers. The science communication and stem cell researchers developed the concept of the program and designed its structure. The high school teachers provided helpful advice and opinions on how to improve the textbooks used in the program. We showed that this kind of collaboration facilitated the development of the program.
