抄録
According to the course of study for high school biology, the purpose of study is to develop inquiry ability and positive attitudes toward science through experiments and observations. However, because of increased access to the virtual world, modern high school students have had less contact with nature in their childhood. Therefore, it has become harder for them to have an concrete understanding of biological concepts. This makes it difficult to see the relevance of living things and biological phenomena in class.
Many high school students would not believe that egg embryos could become fully hatched birds with only a 34- or 46-hour incubation period, even with careful observation. Therefore we developed lesson plans not only to observe avian embryos, but also to continue incubation until the eggs hatched. We also made students study about egg incubation methods themselves using Bio-STEM ideas.
As a result, these inquiry lessons did not only encourage expansion of the students’ biological knowledge, but also generated ideas connected to STEM fields. We found them to be effective in the promotion of learning aims in the context of Japan. They also brought cross-cutting scientific thoughts, similar to the context of United States STEM education, to our local classrooms.
