Abstract
Particular challenges exist for science education in the developing world, where limited resources require curricula designed to balance state-of-the-art knowledge with practical and political considerations in region-specific contexts. Project-based biology teaching is especially difficult to execute due to high infrastructural costs and limited teacher training. Here, we report the results of implementing short, challenging, and low-cost biology courses to high school and college students in Bolivia, designed and taught in collaboration between scientists from developed nations and local science instructors. We find our approach to be effective at transmitting advanced topics in disease modeling, microscopy, genome engineering, neuroscience, microbiology, and regenerative biology. We find that student learning through this approach was not significantly affected by their background, education level, socioeconomic status, or initial interest in the course. Moreover, participants reported a heightened interest in pursuing scientific careers after course completion. These results demonstrate efficacy of participatory learning in a developing nation, and suggest that similar techniques could drive scientific engagement in other developing economies.
Highlights
Latin America is home to over 10% of the world’s population but accounts for only 5% of the global scientific output (Holmgren and Schnitzer, 2004; Leon-De La et al, 2018; Zacca-Gonzalez et al, 2014; UNESCO, 2015), as measured by quantity of research publications and patent awards
The course serves as an introductory survey of topics in neuroscience and disease modeling, ranging from brain anatomy to selection of an animal model and to fundamentals of genetics to understanding how basic research in animal models is applicable to human disease
To explore gene transfer from human to invertebrates, students performed polymerase chain reaction (PCR), gel electrophoresis, and western blotting to amplify a gene of interest and identify the corresponding protein
Summary
Latin America is home to over 10% of the world’s population but accounts for only 5% of the global scientific output (Holmgren and Schnitzer, 2004; Leon-De La et al, 2018; Zacca-Gonzalez et al, 2014; UNESCO, 2015), as measured by quantity of research publications and patent awards. Even outside of Latin America, Latinxs tend to be underrepresented in scientific careers. In the United States, while Latinxs comprise over 17% of the country’s population, they receive under 6% of graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Taningco et al, 2008). Several intervention strategies have been deployed in an attempt to minimize these gaps, but disproportionately low Latinx representation in STEM remains a conundrum for policymakers and science educators
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