The purpose of this article is to introduce and develop a teaching method and process that incorporates quick response (QR) codes and smartphones into field trips for biology classes. The teaching process using QR codes and smartphones consisted of four steps. The first step was the selection of a suitable field study site and identification of species at the site. For this study, a tidal mudflat in Korea was selected and 24 species were identified at the field site. The second step was the generation by the instructor of QR codes for the 24 species, construction of QR code sheets for the species, and installation of a "QR code decoding app" on students' smartphones. In step 3, students explored and identified species at the field study site using the QR code sheets and shared their results with classmates via a social network system (SNS). The final step was the presentation and discussion of results in follow-up classes. The teaching method developed for this study led to active classroom discussion via smartphone social-networking services. Besides detailing the "scan and learn" teaching method and process, the paper offers a quick checklist for teachers and simplified specifics for the creation of a customized and illustrative field-study guidebook that motivates students.

In most tissues, apoptosis plays a pivotal role in normal development and for regulating cell number, thus inappropriate apoptosis underlies a variety of diseases. Caspase-3 is one of a family of caspases that are mainly involved in the apoptotic signal transduction pathway, where caspase-3 acts as an effect molecule to proteolytically cleave intracellular substrates that are necessary for maintaining cell survival. Recent evidences show that apoptotic cell death can be blocked by inhibiting caspase-3, suggesting its inhibitors have potential to be therapeutic drugs for the diseases related with inappropriate apoptosis. We have established a screening system to search caspase-3 inhibitors from chemical libraries stocked in our institute. The enzyme assay is configured entirely in 96-well format, which is easily adapted for high throughput screening. Before performing mass screening, 80 in-house compounds were screened as a preliminary experiment, and we found that morin hydrate inhibited caspase-3 by 66.4% at the final concentration of 20 microM.

The purpose of this study was to design a teaching method suitable for science high school students using atomic force microscopy. During their scientific inquiry procedure, high school students observed a micro-nanostructure of a biological sample, which is unobservable via an optical microscope. The developed teaching method enhanced students' science-learning motivation and scientific creativity.

No abstract

No abstract