Slimy blobs of DNA extracted from an onion and floating in a test tube like tiny drifts of cloud evoke exclamations of delight from the group of 33 biology and natural science teachers – reminding them just why they had chosen the field of science.
‘It’s beautiful,” repeats Thomas Jafta, a biology teacher at Newlands East Secondary School in Durban, as they wind the DNA onto a glass rod. With eyes shining and a huge grin on his face, he says triumphantly, ‘We’ve done it!” In an experiment using materials such as shampoo and table salt instead of expensive chemicals, they had successfully isolated the essence of what makes an onion an onion.
The teachers are attending a week-long training course in Cape Town entitled Crossing Over, organised by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
The course had its genesis in another HSRC workshop held last year and entitled Evolution and Education in South Africa, where it became clear that the concepts involved in evolutionary theory, which is to be introduced into the school syllabus for the first time, are poorly understood.
Colleen Dawson, an education consultant involved in conceptualising the course, says that apart from teachers having to grapple with the new content, they will have to deal with the perceived conflict between the theories of evolution and creation.
The teachers had a varied programme, covering topics from genetics to evolution; practicals; outcomes based education (OBE) lesson planning; as well as outings to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, the West Coast Fossil Park and the MTN Science Centre.
In the team-teaching modules on genetics and evolution, presented by molecular biologist Jaishree Raman and evolutionary biologist Edith Dempster, you could see the pennies dropping as teachers finally grasped concepts they’d either been teaching without fully understanding, or were encountering for the first time.
Making a strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA) from deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) by sticking cardboard pieces onto velcro brings about an ‘Aha” moment for Altitia Klaasen, a natural science teacher at Villiersdorp Secondary School in the Western Cape. Suddenly genes, chromosomes, DNA, RNA and nucleotides are no longer ‘foreign objects” that she glosses over in class because she doesn’t understand how they work. Now she’s armed with a fun and inexpensive way to help learners gain the same understanding she has.
Only a third of the teachers attending the course have laboratories at their schools and even some of those with laboratories don’t have equipment or materials. So, learning how to do practicals using ordinary ingredients without laboratory equipment will make the experience valuable to their learners as well.
Even so, some, such as Kuzeka Gecelo from Lingelethu Junior Secondary School in Cala, the Eastern Cape, have to think about how they would do parts of the practicals many take for granted – like the availability of boiling water and ice ( which are used in the onion DNA practical). There is no electricity at Gecelo’s school, so she would have to build a fire in a brazier if she wanted to heat water, or go to the nearby clinic for help.
Welcome Kgopane faced similar problems at Sango Combined School in the village of Laersdrif near Middelburg, Mpumalanga, until they got electricity.
The course has been a real eye-opener for him. ‘I’ve realised we’ve been out of step. Nature is centred around genes and evolution. It’s recognised almost everywhere but in our syllabus.
‘I was challenged to see real fossils (at the West Coast Fossil Park). I knew only of fossil fuels. I didn’t know of things that could help us explain the past, and help us understand ourselves and predict what will happen in the future,” says Kgopane.
As OBE has helped pupils explore their creativity, so Kgopane believes the new content in the curriculum will broaden their vision of careers in the sciences.
‘I’ve always encouraged learners to follow science careers. It’s difficult because there aren’t many examples in their environment, though they do realise doctors and nurses are needed. But now I can tell them about other fields such as genetics and palaeontology,” he says.
Their visit to the West Coast Fossil Park was, for many of the teachers, a first encounter with fossils. Comprehensive explanations by manager Pippa Haarhof and her team helped them grasp the concept of geological time stretching back 4,6-billion years (the age of the earth) and the changes over time that are known as evolution.
Highlighting the need for this and similar programmes for teachers, Dempster, who works regularly in teacher education, says that in general, teachers’ knowledge of modern biology and evolutionary theory is very poor. ‘It’s important for them to recognise that evolution is a unifying concept in biology.”
Raman adds: ‘Biology is about looking for patterns and relationships. The only way you can make sense of this is through the evolutionary cycle.”
For the teachers, ‘crossing over” has helped to bridge the gaps between pockets of understanding and to make the connection that genes, the building blocks of DNA, are the elements that determine those changes over thousands of years that we call evolution.