Classroom to career: Implementation considerations for engaging students with meaningful DNA sequencing learning opportunities.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2024
Original Citation
Wray C.
Classroom to career: Implementation considerations for engaging students with meaningful DNA sequencing learning opportunities. Rigor and Reproducibility in Genetics and Genomics: Academic Press; 2024. p. 137-55.
JAX Source
Rigor and Reproducibility in Genetics and Genomics: Academic Press; 2024. p. 137-55.
ISBN
978-0-12-817218-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817218-6.00003-6
Abstract
While DNA science is fascinating in its own right, successfully executing a DNA sequencing exercise with high school or undergraduate students is an extremely valuable learning experience. DNA sequencing is common as a laboratory exercise embedded within undergraduate courses. At the high school level, DNA sequencing experiments are equally engaging for students but normally require external programmatic support or connections to a university core facility. To achieve age-appropriate learning goals students need to be actively engaged in the laboratory or sequence analysis activity. When students take ownership of a sequencing project and the downstream data, they gain self-confidence and make a wide variety of content-based learning gains. Highly successful integration of DNA sequencing into high school and undergraduate classrooms requires achievable laboratory and data analysis workflows, user-friendly web resources/platforms for data analysis and dedicated faculty or a network of professionals that can support larger-scale, crowd-sourced sequencing efforts. This chapter discusses best-practices for integrating DNA sequencing into high school and undergraduate classes and highlights a few examples of successful, class-based research integrations.