2025 Volume 66 Issue 1 Pages 35-51
The current Course of Study has significantly reduced the essential core vocabulary addressed in upper secondary school biology and basic biology as compared to the previous curriculum. Consequently, for the majority of students, the sole exposure to animal development observation experiments throughout their elementary and secondary education is limited to “observation of medaka egg” in the fifth grade. This limited exposure raises concerns related to students’ comprehension of animal development, which encompasses various stages and is biased toward differentiation. This study aims to implement a novel animal development observation experiment for elementary and lower secondary schools, complementing the existing “observation of medaka egg (differentiation)” activity. A new experiment was developed in this study to observe animal development using the Pacific oyster. Through this experiment, students can observe gametes, fertilization and meiosis in the Pacific oyster. Implemented as visiting lectures at various elementary and lower secondary educational institutions, the feasibility of executing the experiment and its pedagogical impact on students were systematically evaluated during these sessions. The results indicated that the experiment could be successfully implemented at an appropriate level of difficulty within a single-class period in both elementary and lower secondary schools. Furthermore, students, in accordance with their stages of learning, were able to recognize, develop an interest in, and comprehend the concepts of ‘gametes,’ ‘fertilization,’ and ‘meiosis’ through this experimental approach. These findings suggest that this experiment, which uses the Pacific oyster to examine animal development, has the potential to introduce a novel educational approach in elementary and lower secondary schools, thereby expanding the pedagogical focus beyond differentiation.
