Teaching Cellular Respiration & Alternate Energy Sources with a Laboratory Exercise Developed by a Scientist-Teacher Partnership

Understanding Cellular Respiration through Simulation Using Lego® as a Concrete Dynamic Model

“…We designed this context based on one of the elements described in the Dutch final exam requirements which makes reference to the metabolism of prokaryotes and their applicability in biotechnological context. From literature, we know that finding a context for abstract and complex topics such as cellular respiration can be hard [15] and student interest in cellular respiration in one of the lowest out of the biology curriculum [16,17]. In this research, we have shown that using a biotechnical context in which students become part of a research team wanting to find the efficiency of a sediment battery can lead students to describing the topic as being meaningful to real life.…”

“…Earlier research has shown that there are some common difficulties in teaching and learning cellular respiration. Both teachers and students stated it to be one of the most complex and hardest topics in biology and student interest in the topic is known to be one of the lowest out of the biology curriculum [15][16][17][18]. The question as to why it is considered to be so complex and hard can be partly answered by the rationale that the entire process is considered to be highly abstract as a result of not being visible to the unaided eye (micro level) with little connection to functions on higher organizational (macro) levels and that it contains many distinctive steps that function in a complex system which make it hard to follow.…”

“…The question as to why it is considered to be so complex and hard can be partly answered by the rationale that the entire process is considered to be highly abstract as a result of not being visible to the unaided eye (micro level) with little connection to functions on higher organizational (macro) levels and that it contains many distinctive steps that function in a complex system which make it hard to follow. Second, it is also found to be difficult to relate the subprocesses to each other and to real life [15]. Third, the multitude of details and the need of a new vocabulary make it a challenging topic [18,19].…”

“…For this, we chose the context of a research team wanting to find the efficiency of using a sediment battery as a source of alternative energy in this time of anticipated shortage on fossil fuels. In a sediment battery [15,46], bacteria (prokaryotes) are used for production of energy.…”

Η Διδασκαλία Θεμάτων Βιοχημείας Στη Δευτεροβάθμια Εκπαίδευση

“…Τα κύτταρα αυτά αποτελούν πρόσφατο ερευνητικό πεδίο και δεσµεύουν ηλεκτρική ενέργεια µε την οποία µπορούν να πραγµατοποιήσουν αναερόβια Αναπνοή. Απουσία δηλαδή οξυγόνου, κάποια βακτήρια έχουν την ικανότητα να αναπνέουν, χρησιµοποιώντας σίδηρο σε στερεή φάση (γλυκόζη + Fe +3 → CO 2 + Fe +2 ) [375,376]. Στην πρώτη µελέτη περιγράφεται η κατασκευή ενός τέτοιου συστήµατος κυττάρων, που δουλεύει µε απλά υλικά που υπάρχουν στα πιο πολλά εργαστήρια Βιολογίας.…”