In this research, a questionnaire survey was conducted of lower secondary school students with regard to their "nature-based experiences, etc., and view of life", and the effects and meaningfulness of experiences with nature and living things on the developing of view of life were considered.

The research results are as follows: (1) Sex differences are perceived about "nature-based experiences" ,

"Experiences capturing/gathering animals", and they are effective in developing view of life with regard to living things. (2) Male students' view of life with regard to living things is lower than female students'. (3) Lower secondary school students' view of life with regard to living things is lower than university students'. (4) Students' view of life with regard to plants is lower than animals, especially withering of wild plants. As "experience" and "view of life" show high correlation according to our statistical test, (5) Nature-based experience, learning experience on living things and experiences of breeding or contact with animals can be an effective medium for developing view of life.

We can conclude that sensing living things and developing view of life through experiences is important for science education. It is a future problem how to develop view of life with regard to plants on aspects of the view of biodiversity and environmental education.

This study aims to urge students' recognition to the value of preserving ecosystem and biodiversity, to contribute to students' understandings on the contents of the unit "ecosystem" in the senior high school biology curriculum, and to give chances for consideration about local natural environment to students by means of development of the teaching material about symbiosis using Apis cerana japonica. The results of the questionnaires to students on paper and interview proved the effect of this teaching material on the purposes of this study. And furthermore, application of this teaching material and detailed survey of the answers from students revealed the followings as advantages of this teaching material: the constant availability of the material owing to be able to be kept hands on, the flexibility of the material to other themes to be studied in the unit "ecosystem", and the value as a teaching material of environmental education based on local sustainability.

DNA extraction experiments have been carried out in many high school Biology classes. Although white extract thought to be DNA is obtained by the simple extraction methods described in textbooks, there are no validation experiments as to whether the white extract is DNA. The extracts from broccoli show the maximum wavelength of 260nm-specific of DNA, but the extracts from bananas did not. Bananas are reportedly not an appropriate material for this reason. The sensitivity of diphenylamine method specified with DNA detection was low, so we could not clearly confirm the existence of DNA in these extracts obtained by the simple extraction method. Therefore, we conducted a study to teach the experiments of DNA extraction and DNA detection within a 50-minute lesson period. And to detect the DNA from the sample, we used the fluorescent staining procedure with a fluorescent dye (GRG) specified for DNA detection. It was possible to observe strong fluorescence inthe extraction of broccoli, but little fluorescence in that of bananas. We could detect a clear difference in these two extracts. Then we introduced this fluorescent staining method in high school Basic Biology classes. Students could do all the experiments within 50 minutes. Most of the students were able to appropriately determine which extracts included DNA through the fluorescent staining procedure. These results suggest that fluorescent staining is an effective method for high school students to use to detect DNA from crude samples.

A previous study showed 11 female-specific RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) markers for identifying W chromosome (♀) of the silkworm, Bombyx mori. Out of the markers, we selected two markers named W-Yukemuri-S and W-Bonsai, and amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using a thermal cycler (machine PCR). The PCR conditions were determined as follows: (1) DNA extraction and template DNA amount - Genomic DNA was successfully isolated from the posterior silk gland of the 5th larva, which was used as a template DNA at the concentration over 2.5 ng/μL reaction mixture, (2) the number of thermal cycle and the range of reaction temperature at each step- A series of 30 thermal cycles was carried out with each cycle consisting of 3 discrete temperature steps at 92-96℃ for 30 sec, 56-61℃ for 30 sec and 68-73℃ for 1 min. In these conditions, a female-specific PCR product (W-Yukemuri-S) was appeared as a distinct single band after agaroseelectrophoresis. For establishment of manual PCR, three types of water bath were used: (1) 1L beaker on a hot plate stirrer, (2) temperature-controlled water bath on a stirrer, and (3) temperature-controlled water bath with a circulator. The temperatures of these water baths were well regulated within the range of 1.5℃ of the setting temperature. Using these water baths set at different temperatures (94, 60, 70℃), manual PCR was made by a series of 30 repeated temperature changes. The products by manual PCR were identical to those of machine PCR, meaning that two female specific markers, W-Yukemuri-Sand W-Bonsai, are amplified by manual PCR and the silkworm sex can be determined as a result. The incorporation of this experiment into high school biology laboratory is discussed from 4 different angles.