Breathing new life into the biology classroom.

744 When asked what they remember of their biology class in school, most biology teachers will recall hours of tedious dictation, poring over thick tomes and intricate drawings of dissected, half-putrefied animals lingering in formaldehyde. Few will reminisce about memorable experiments, in contrast to chemistry or physics. Given this background, it is not surprising that many teachers find it hard to get to grips with experiments in molecular biology. The classroom is already in danger of being superseded as a source of educational material by the Internet, while teachers are faced with students who are increasingly difficult to motivate. But on one thing all teachers agree: children love experiments. As Dean Madden, Co-director of the National Centre for Biotechnology Education in Reading, UK, exclaimed enthusiastically at EMBO’s second international practical workshop for science teachers earlier this year, “children love to get their hands dirty.” And the simpler the experiment, the better, it seems. However, dragging a slowly decomposing cadaver from a bag of yellowing liquid to dissect another part of its anatomy is not the kind of hand-dirtying that most students look forward to. They might, for instance, find it more interesting to explore some of the practical science behind the ground-breaking and socially controversial technologies made possible by molecular biology. But the terms ‘molecular biology’ or ‘biotechnology’ alone cannot magically conjure an exciting experiment out of thin air. Whether it is a simple experiment done with minimal equipment in the school laboratory, or a more advanced one in a teaching laboratory at a research institute, an experiment must stimulate curiosity beyond the technicalities of pipetting solutions and running gels. And there is an urgent need to stimulate this curiosity about biology among the younger generation; first, because citizens increasingly need to be equipped with the intellectual capacity to play an active role in deciding their future, and second because society needs excellent young scientists to push the frontiers of research. Making science an attractive subject, and cultivating an enquiring mind, both start in school. But biology is not a textbook subject that can be learnt merely by rote, or studied as a history of knowledge. It is a rapidly developing field of science that relies on experimentation and critical evaluation. It is a science that requires every bit as much brilliance in its practitioners as other sciences, and by inference, every bit as much attention to their education. Sadly, in many European secondary schools its teaching has not kept pace with modern research.