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Teaching Biology
• Biology is a broad topic that can easily overwhelm the
Teaching Biology at the Institute of Biology, teacher as much as the student
University of the Philippines, Diliman
• Is biology purely memorization, or is there more?
• The students must retain the key concepts long after
Ian Kendrich C. Fontanilla, M.Sc. they’ve forgotten many facts and terms
(ianfontanilla@hotmail.com)
• Students should relate biological concepts to everyday
life
Our Teaching Experience in IB Our Teaching Experience in IB
• We rely heavily now on the LCD projector and our • Hands on experience through lab exercises is still
powerpoint presentations with clearer figures indispensible
• ..but we never abandon the chalk and board to stress
points!
Our Teaching Experience in IB Some Examples of Biological Concepts and How They
• …as well as field work! are Taught
1. Bioinformatics
2. Biogeography
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What is bioinformatics? What is bioinformatics?
• Biological information are stored in biological databases
• Application of computers, databases, and in order to organise the data on a large scale
computational methods to the management of
biological information • Biological database
• A large, organized body of persistent data, usually
• Biological information can be in the form of: associated with computerized software designed to
• Nucleotide sequences (DNA and RNA) update, query, and retrieve components of the data
stored within the system
• Amino acid sequences and protein structure
• Gene expression • Must be easily accessible
• E.g. GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Molecular Phylogeny – an application of bioinformatics What is bioinformatics?
•Estimating and analyzing evolutionary relationships
• There has been a phenomenal increase of biological
using molecular markers such as DNA and proteins information (e.g. molecular biology) in the last few
decades
•Molecular markers retain a record of an organism’s
evolutionary history • e.g. GENBANK – definitive database in the US for
gene sequences
•The nucleotide or amino acid differences within a gene
reflect the evolutionary distance between two • (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
organisms
•Molecular markers are easily quantifiable compared to
morphological data
•Makes use of the freeware BioEdit (www.mbio.ncsu.edu/BioEdit/BioEdit.html)
•Neighbor-joining
phylogenetic tree of mammals
Biogeography
based on the mbrca1 gene
•Deals with geographic patterns of species distribution and
the processes that result in such patterns.
•Species distribution brought about by several factors:
•speciation
•extinction
•continental drift
•glaciation
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Islands of the Philippines during the last ice age (~10,000 years ago)
Some Examples of Problematic Biological Concepts
and How We Teach Them in IB
1. The theory of evolution
•“It’s just a theory.”
2. The issue on reproductive health
•Should contraception be taught in the first place?
•Should contraception be taught in grade school and
high school?
1. Evolution Evolution – how we teach it in IB
•Change in gene frequencies in populations over time •Evolution IS a theory that is testable
•Unifying concept in biology •We lay out all the facts
•“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
(Theodosius Dobzhansky: 1900-1975)
•Ask the students to critically analyse the facts
•Explains:
•Origin of species
•What are their conclusions about evolution?
•Diversity of organisms and their relationships
•Similarities and differences among species
•Adaptations to the environment
Different reactions to evolution Different reactions to evolution
1. Young Earth Creationists 2. Day-Age Theorists
• accept Genesis literally, including not just the • each of the six days of creation is not a 24-h day but a
special, separate creation of human beings and all long period of time, even thousands or millions of
other species, but the historicity of Noah’s Flood years
• do not interpret the flat-earth and geocentric passages • found comfort in what they regard as a rough parallel
of the Bible literally, but they reject modern physics, between organic evolution and Genesis, in which
chemistry, and geology concerning the age of the plants appear before animals and human beings
earth appear last
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Different reactions to evolution Different reactions to evolution
3. Progressive Creationists 4. Intelligent Design Proponents
• God created kinds of animals that were of a higher • certain features of the universe and of living things are
taxonomic level than species best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected
process such as natural selection
• God created creatures containing at least as much
genetic variation as a family (e.g. Felidae,
Cercopithecidae) and considerable evolution within a • argue that an archaeologist who finds a statue made of
kind then occurred stone in a field may justifiably conclude that the statue
was designed, and reasonably seek to identify its
designer
Different reactions to evolution Different reactions to evolution
5. Theistic Evolutionists 6. Material Evolutionists
• God created but relied more upon the laws of nature to
bring about His purpose • go beyond science and propose that the laws of nature
are not only sufficient to explain all of nature and
evolution but that the supernatural does not exist
• one species can give rise to another
• see God as intervening at critical intervals during the
history of life especially in the origin of human beings • philosophical materialism (naturalism) there is
nothing in the universe beyond matter, energy, and
their interactions
Implantation
2. The Reproductive Health
• Stage after fertilization in humans where a blastocyst develops from a
fertilized zygote
• A right that should be accorded every woman
• “involves the right to decide freely and responsibly the
number and spacing of children and to have information,
education and means to do so”
• Panao, 2008
• When does life begin?
•Egg moves along oviduct to uterus
•6th day after fertilization, blastocyst attaches to uterine wall or
ENDOMETRIUM
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Contraceptives
Human Embryonic & Fetal Development
•Human gestation time – from conception to birth
– approximately 9 months Blocks any one of the following stages of early
development:
•Embryonic development – months 1 – 2
1. Release & transport of gametes
•Fetal development – months 3 – 9 2. Fertilization
3. Implantation
Types of Contraceptives Reproductive Health – how we teach it in IB
•Explain human development from gametes to adulthood
1. Ovulation-suppressing methods
•How is development stopped by each type of contraceptive
2. Barrier methods (physical and chemical)
3. Surgical methods •Ask the students when they think life should begin
4. Implantation-suppressing methods •Ask the students if they would use contraceptives
5. Others
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