Perceptions and prospects in life sciences in a heterogeneous Latin American population

Abstract

43Particular challenges exist for science education in the developing world, 44where limited resources beget curricula designed to balance state-of-the-art 45 knowledge with practical and political considerations in region-specific contexts. 46Project-based biology teaching is particularly difficult to execute due to high 47 infrastructural costs and limited teacher training. Here, we report our results 48 implementing short, challenging, and low-cost biology courses to high school and 49 college students in Bolivia, designed and taught in collaboration between 50 scientists from developed nations and local science instructors. We find our 51 approach to be effective at transmitting advanced topics in disease modeling, 52 microscopy, genome engineering, neuroscience, microbiology, and regenerative 53 biology. Importantly, this approach was unaffected by the students' backgrounds, 54 education level, socioeconomic status, or initial interest in the course, and 55 increased participants' interest in pursuing scientific careers. These results 56 demonstrate efficacy of participatory learning in a developing nation, and suggest 57 that such techniques could drive scientific engagement in other developing 58 economies. 59 60 61 Countries, Latin America 63 64 65 66 relatively small territory the most diverse country in Latin America [7, 90 8]. Moreover, three Bolivian cities are projected as the fastest-growing Latin 91American economies by 2030, as measured by middle-income population 92 growth, with a fifteen-fold hike expected in the most populous city, Santa Cruz 93[9]. The country accounts for only 0.22% of Latin American STI research outputs 94 and has negligible rates of patent awards [4, 10]. Despite a decade of relative 95 political stability and government education expenditures exceeding 8% of 96 GDP-highest in the region and far above any developed country, with the 97