What do you consider responsible
use of CRISPR technology
and why?
Introduction to Scientific Literacy:
My two-month long inquiry began with an explicit lesson to introduce scientific literacy. I first asked students what is scientific literacy? While students had never heard the term before, they knew literacy related to the ability to read and write and were able to infer that the term related to the ability to read and write scientific content. I defined scientific literacy to the class as “the ability to analyze, interpret, and communicate scientific ideas” (Holliday et al., 1994). I then related it to the scientific method, as students have background knowledge of the scientific method. We discussed the three components of the claim evidence reasoning framework and discussed how each component was similar to the scientific method. For example, a claim is like a hypothesis. I then asked students why this skill is so important not only to scientists? We discussed misinformed scientific claims in the media. Some students brought up examples such as shaving your mustache makes it grow back thicker and cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis. CRISPR CER trifold: After Redi’s experiment, it was time for students to practice on their own. The students had previously read two articles about CRISPR and designer babies (article 1 and article 2). CRISPR is a new genetic engineering technology that is much cheaper, more accurate, and easier to use then previous technologies. To help students better understand the CRISPR technology I showed them a TedTalk about CRISPR by one of its inventors, Dr. Jennifer Doudna. I posed the follow question to them: What do you consider responsible use of the CRISPR technology and why? I asked them to create a trifold with computer paper so that there was one column for claim, one for evidence, and one for reasoning. This was to visually separate the three components of the framework, rather then beginning by combining all three together. |
Artifact 4: Claim Evidence Reasoning Lesson
Redi's Experiment Example:
Once the relevance of the framework was established, we practiced using it together. We did this by observing an image of Redi’s experiment. Redi was one of the first scientists to disprove spontaneous generation, or the idea that organisms originate from nonliving matter. He did this by showing that maggots arose from flies not rotten meat. As a class, looking at Redi’s experimental results we formed the claim that flies do not originate from meat. We then explored the evidence shown in the image. Some evidence we observed, when the jar with meat was covered with a stopper no flies developed in the jar. When the jar with meat was covered with cheesecloth, flies did not develop in the jar however they were on the outside on top of the cheesecloth. Students inferred the flies were attracted to the smell of the rotten meat. After looking at the evidence we tied it back to our original claim, stating that because the no flies developed in the jar when it was covered the flies did not originate from meat. |
Redi's experiment image from https://biotask.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/biogenesis-redi.jpg