The competition is presented in a bioinformatics research project in which teams of high school students solve problems with access to molecular databases and similar resources on the Internet. The problems are devised by faculty from the Waksman Institute of Rutgers. The coming year's Waksman Student Scholars Program is an investigation of factors that cause the differences between humans and their closest cousins, the great apes. This student and teacher teams use DNA sequence data to examine the genes that these species have in common, and to look for differences in DNA sequence that may be significant in determining the greater intellectual capacity of humans. The tutorials on the site, covering topics such as the structure of RNA, transcription, and genes and chromosomes, offer an alternative way of learning about the structure of biomolecules and fundamental molecular processes.
Visitors progress through numbered tutorial sections with color animations and online quizzes.
References, databases, and downloadable free software are among the collection of molecular biology links that are provided as resources for students and teachers participating in the program. Scientists in the classroom.