Designing software to help users develop intuition about scientific processes: geneCube
Abstract: The challenges in designing software to enable students to develop an intuitive understanding of experimental strategies are discussed. The focus is on key experiments in the development of ideas in genetics/ biotechnology. These are specified in the curriculum for International Baccalaureate Higher Level Biology. geneCube allows students to explore a number of these experiments and techniques, including Sanger DNA sequencing, Meselson & Stahl's demonstration of semi-conservative replication, Hershey & Chase's experimental support for DNA as the carrier of genetic information, PCR , epigenetic silencing of one X chromosome in females. The structural relationship between mental models and the form of the evidence which supports them is considered.