Teaching PCR Through Inquiry in an Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Course

摘要

In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of an inquiry-based laboratory unit on the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). This unit was designed and taught for the undergraduate Eukaryotic Genetics Laboratory class (Bio105L) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Our activity utilizes an authentic molecular biology research question to teach the underlying molecular mechanisms and experi-mental technique of PCR, as well as fundamental scientific process skills such as plan-ning experiments, making predictions and interpreting data. In particular, the activity prompts students to use PCR to determine which gene has been deleted in a region of the Drosophila genome. During this activity, students also gained technical experience in common molecular biology techniques, learned about additional applications of PCR and used a hands-on approach to model each step of PCR.