Prepping Students for Authentic Science: Student Research Helps Scientists Discover the Function of Poorly Characterized Plant Genes (2008)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You can probably think of a time when your students conducted an experiment with a predictable outcome that yielded an unexpected result. When this happens, discussion often centers on, What did we do wrong? instead of How do these data address our scientific question? or What alternative explanations could account for our findings? (Hart et al. 2000). Unexpected results can serve as an excellent teaching tool and can be used as a learning context for developing students' understanding of the process and nature of science (AAAS 1990; Bencze and Hodson 1999; Hanauer et al. 2007; Means 1998; NRC 1996). Making discoveries is fun and exciting, and may be the impetus that propels young learners to pursue challenging course-work, further education, and careers in science (Markowitz 2004; Roberts and Wassersug 2008). Yet, scientific research usually happens in research laboratories or at field sites, and requires access to knowledge, supplies, and equipment not typically available in precollege classrooms. Research internships provide an excellent way for high school students to participate in authentic research (Barab and Hay 2001; Knox, Moynihan, and Markowitz 2003; Markowitz 2004). However, such opportunities are often limited in scope and scale and involve only a handful of students. Yet, three factors are opening doors between classrooms and research labs: publicly available databases that contain massive amounts of biological information; stock centers that house and distribute inexpensive organisms with different genotypes; and the internet, which serves as conduit for dialogue and knowledge sharing. In this article, we describe a large-scale research collaboration, the Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP; see On the web at the end of this article), that has capitalized on these resources in response to interest from students. Through PREP, entire classes of students, with mentorship from teachers and scientists, are currently designing and conducting their own investigations while adding to the body of knowledge about genes and their functions. Germination of a collaboration A few years ago, the first author met with several teacher colleagues who noted that their students wanted opportunities to collect real data. Students were interested in moving beyond demonstration labs, with their predict able outcomes, and in a different direction than science fairs, where findings may only be shared with other students and their families, rather than the broader scientific community. The group brainstormed what experiments students could do in classrooms, keeping in mind their interests, district regulations, and required course content. Microbes are easy to maintain and manipulate, but preparation, safe handling, and disposal of growth media can be problematic and cost-prohibitive. Investigations with animals also present a host of concerns, including the regulations, logistics, and cost of care. In contrast, plants are uniquely flexible, scalable, and compelling tools for student investigations. Plants are large enough to be manipulated by young hands, inexpensive enough to grow in the scale required by classrooms, and robust enough for student caretakers (Lally et al. 2007). Many teachers already use the Wisconsin Fast Plants curriculum to guide students in understanding plant biology, classical genetics, and scientific inquiry. Fast Plants have been bred to have a uniform, short flowering time and grow well in a small indoor space (see On the web). Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of Fast Plants, is well characterized at the molecular level so many tools and resources are available for teaching concepts and skills related to genetics and biotechnology. More than 10,000 scientists around the world who study Arabidopsis continue to generate these resources and make them available at low or no cost. …