Analysis of high school students’ conceptual maps to investigate their understanding of DNARNA protein relation after accessing the GenBank

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of conceptual maps elaborated by high school students during the application of a didactic unit (DU) about synthesis of protein. One of the activities in this DU involved the supervised access to the GenBank, a database for genes and DNA sequences available, at the National Center Biotechnology Information (NCBI), website. The purpose of this study was to check the students’ understanding of DNA-RNA-protein relation through the elaboration of conceptual maps. These maps were developed at the end of the DU by six volunteer students from grade 10 at the Militar School (CMSM), in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. This DU was developed, outside of regular, school activities time. For the analysis of the conceptual maps, a score table proposed by Novak and Gowin (1996) was used. The model conceptual map had 52 points; in our study, two students got score 41, others three got 26, 10, 2 points and only one had no score. In the quantitative and in the qualitative analyses it was possible to indentify a significant improvement in these students´ conceptual relations about protein synthesis. The data suggest that the access to the GenBank, used as a didactic strategy in the DU, has made this improvement possible.