Lena A E Tibell

• Linköping University

Although there is an increasing body of knowledge on interactive learning environments in science education, there is little reported on the empirical process of designing such environments with multiple perspectives. This study describes the design of Tracing Carbon, a learning environment for developing grade 7–9 pupils’ systems thinking skills i...

We propose a three-stage model for designing school visits. The "Experience" stage involves immersive visual experiences to spark interest. The "Engagement" stage builds on this by providing hands-on interaction with data visualization exhibits. The "Applicate" stage oBers opportunities to apply and create using data visualization, advancing active...

School visits to science centers can provide valuable opportunities for pupils to engage with science content and practices different from the traditional classroom and raise pupils' interest in science and science careers. Teachers play a key role in the success of a visit by linking to classroom practice. Unfortunately, visits tend to be viewed a...

Rapid developments in educational technology in higher education are intended to make learning more engaging and effective. At the same time, cognitive load theory stresses limitations of human cognitive architecture and urges educational developers to design learning tools that optimise learners’ mental capacities. In a 2-month study we investigat...

Background A large body of research has investigated students’ conceptions of evolutionary changes and emphasizes that students have alternative conceptions about their causes. A conventional way to monitor students’ conceptions is through inventories where researchers analyse their written answers. However, textbooks are being increasingly complem...

Background A large body of research investigate student´s conceptions and emphasizes that students have alternative conceptions about causes of evolutionary changes. The conventional way to monitor students’ conceptions are through inventories where researchers analyze their written answers. However, textbooks are being increasingly complemented wi...

Previous research suggests that connecting organizational levels of biological systems is challenging for pupils. In the present study we investigated 122 pupils’ written responses to a question in a national biology test concerning how nutrient molecules are adsorbed by the small intestine and transported to the brain. We aimed to investigate what...

Applying artificial intelligence (AI) to support science learning is a prominent aspect of the digital education revolution. This study investigates students’ interaction and learning with an AI book, which enables the inputting of questions and receiving of suggested questions to understand biology, in comparison with a traditional E-book. Student...

This article is written in memory of Professor Helge Strömdahl (1945-2018). Helge took his Ph.D. at Gothenburg University in 1996 with the dissertation "On mole and amount of substance. A study of the dynamics of concept formation and concept attainment". He was director of the Swedish National Graduate School in Science and Technology Education (F...

Background Macroevolutionary time is a difficult idea to grasp and is considered to be a threshold concept in teaching and learning evolution. One way of addressing this subject is to use animations that represent evolutionary time. The aim of this descriptive and exploratory study was to investigate how various representations of time in an animat...

This paper presents a study of children’s ideas of the body’s internal structure. Children between four and 13 years (N = 170) individually produced drawings. During each drawing session the children explained their drawings to a facilitator and added written labels either by themselves or, if they were too young to write, with the facilitator’s he...

Hands-on digital interactivity in science centers provides new communicative opportunities. The Microcosmos multi-touch table allows visitors to interact with 64 image “cards” of (sub)microscopic biological structures and processes embedded across seven theme categories. This study presents the integration of biological content, interactive feature...

Science communication is facing a paradigm shift, based on the convergence of exploratory and explanatory visualization. In this article, we coin the term exploranation to denote the way in which visualization methods from scientific exploration can be used to communicate results and how methods in explanatory visualization can enrich exploration.

Modern evolutionary theory is both a central theory and an integrative framework of the life sciences. This is reflected in the common references to evolution in modern science education curricula and contexts. In fact, evolution is a core idea that is supposed to support biology learning by facilitating the organization of relevant knowledge. In a...

Educational videos on the Internet comprise a vast and highly diverse source of information. Online search engines facilitate access to numerous videos claiming to explain natural selection, but little is known about the degree to which the video content match key evolutionary content identified as important in evolution education research. In this...

Antibiotic resistance is typically used to justify education about evolution, as evolutionary reasoning improves our understanding of causes of resistance and possible countermeasures. It has also been promoted as a useful context for teaching natural selection, because its potency as a selection factor, in combination with the very short generatio...

Molecular visualization is a crucial feature of learning progression in molecular biosciences. This is closely linked with learning about fundamental molecular recognition processes such as protein-ligand binding, which relies on grasping the importance of spatial molecular properties. Surface shape is pivotal for molecular recognition in terms of...

In this paper we focus on how South African students’ ideas about the human body are constituted in their descriptions of three different scenarios involving the pathway of a sandwich, a painkiller and a glass of water through the body. In particular, we have studied the way in which the students transferred ideas between the sandwich and the paink...

More than 100 distinct mutations in the gene CuZnSOD encoding human copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (CuZnSOD) have been associated with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS), a fatal neuronal disease. Many studies of different mutant proteins have found effects on protein stabilities, catalytic activity, and metal binding but without a com...

En sänkt naturvetenskaplig kompetens i samhället i stort gör oss sämre rustade att diskutera och göra avvägda val, exempelvis vad gäller miljöfrågor, ny teknik och hälsa. Tyvärr sjunker kunskaperna i naturvetenskap och matematik vid internationella jämförelser och de ungas intresse för naturvetenskapliga och tekniska utbildningar är lågt. För att b...

A well-ordered biological complex can be formed by the random motion of its components, i.e. self-assemble. This is a concept that incorporates issues that may contradict students’ everyday experiences and intuitions. In previous studies, we have shown that a tangible model of virus self-assembly, used in a group exercise, helps students to grasp t...

Self-assembly is the fundamental but counterintuitive principle that explains how ordered biomolecular complexes form spontaneously in the cell. This study investigated the impact of using two external representations of virus self-assembly, an interactive tangible three-dimensional model and a static two-dimensional image, on student learning abou...

I takt med en ökad tillgång till bilder och andra visualiseringar i skolan så ökar även behovet av forskning kring hur elever använder dem. Visualiseringar är ett kraftfullt hjälpmedel i biologi men lärare bör vara uppmärksamma på fallgropar, menar forskare vid Linköpings universitet.

The rapid development and increasing inter- and multi-disciplinarity of life sciences invokes revisions of life science course curricula, recognizing (inter alia) the need to compromise between covering specific phenomena and general processes/principles. For these reasons there have been several initiatives to standardize curricula, and various au...

This study explores tertiary students’ interaction with a haptic virtual model representing the specific binding of two biomolecules, a core concept in molecular life science education. Twenty students assigned to a haptics (experimental) or no-haptics (control) condition performed a “docking” task where users sought the most favourable position be...

This study examines how students explain their conceptual understanding of protein function using visualizations. Thirteen upper secondary students, four tertiary students (studying chemical biology), and two experts were interviewed in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were structured around 2D illustrations of proteins and an animated re...

This study explored whether adding a haptic interface (that provides users with somatosensory information about virtual objects by force and tactile feedback) to a three-dimensional (3D) chemical model enhanced students' understanding of complex molecular interactions. Two modes of the model were compared in a between-groups pre- and posttest desig...

Lectins have widely been used in structural and functional studies of complex carbohydrates. They usually bind carbohydrates with relatively low affinity, but compensate for this by multivalency. This multivalent nature of lectins can sometimes produce unwanted reactions such as agglutination or precipitation of target glycoproteins, when using the...

Molecular life science is one of the fastest-growing fields of scientific and technical innovation, and biotechnology has profound effects on many aspects of daily life-often with deep, ethical dimensions. At the same time, the content is inherently complex, highly abstract, and deeply rooted in diverse disciplines ranging from "pure sciences," suc...

Although immersive haptic virtual technologies are emerging rapidly in modern education, few methods exist for delivering data on the pedagogical merits of such models in the molecular life sciences. This paper reports on a selection of methods that we have used to obtain and analyse data on students’ learning and interaction with a haptic virtual...

More than 100 distinct mutations in the gene (SOD1) for human copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (CuZnSOD) have been associated with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS). Studies of these mutant proteins, which often have been performed under far from physiological conditions, have indicated effects on protein stabilities, catalytic activity...

Extracellular superoxide dismutase (ECSOD) interacts with heparin through its C-terminal domain. In this study we used isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) to get detailed thermodynamic information about the interaction. We have shown that the interaction between ECSOD and intestinal mucosal heparin (M(w) 6000-30000 Da) is exothermic and driven b...

Images, diagrams, and other forms of visualization are playing increasingly important roles in molecular life science teaching and research, both for conveying information and as conceptual tools, transforming the way we think about the events and processes the subject covers. This study examines how upper secondary and tertiary students interpret...

In this paper we present a history dependent transfer function (HDTF) as a possible approach to enable improved haptic feature detection in high dynamic range (HDR) volume data. The HDTF is a multi-dimensional transfer function that uses the recent force history as a selection criterion to switch between transfer functions, thereby adapting to the...

The study reported in this article investigated the use of metaphors by upper secondary and tertiary students while learning a specific content area in molecular life science, protein function. Terms and expressions in science can be used in such precise and general senses that they are totally dissociated from their metaphoric origins. Beginners i...

Human extracellular superoxide dismutase (hEC-SOD) is a secreted tetrameric protein involved in protection against oxygen free radicals. Because EC-SOD is too large a protein for structural determination by multidimensional NMR, and attempts to crystallize the protein for X-ray structural determination have failed, the three-dimensional structure o...

Within the molecular life sciences extensive use is made of visual representations, ranging from sketches to advanced computer graphics, often used to convey abstract knowledge that is difficult for the student to grasp. This work evaluates a new visual and haptic (tactile/kinetic) tool for protein docking in an in situ learning situation by combin...

Lectins are carbohydrate binding proteins that are involved in many recognition events at molecular and cellular levels. Lectin-oligosaccharide interactions are generally considered to be of weak affinity, however some mushroom lectins have unusually high binding affinity towards oligosaccharides with K (d) values in the micromolar range. This woul...

In this paper we present an in situ evaluation of a haptic system, with a representative test population, we aim to determine what, if any, benefit haptics can have in a biomolecular education context. We have developed a haptic application for conveying concepts of molecular interactions, specifically in protein-ligand docking. Utilizing a semi-im...

A comprehensive phylogenetic classification of the kingdom Fungi is proposed, with reference to recent molecular phylogenetic analyses, and with input from diverse members of the fungal taxonomic community. The classification includes 195 taxa, down to the level of order, of which 16 are described or validated here: Dikarya subkingdom nov.; Chytrid...

A mechanism model has been presented that can describe most known kinetic properties of carbonic anhydrase isoenzymes I, II, and III. The essential features of this model include: Nucleophilic attack of metal-bound OH- on CO2 to form metal-bound HCO-3. Formation of metal-bound OH- from metal-bound H2O. In isoenzyme II, and probably also in isoenzym...

To fully understand the function of the Cu- and Zn-containing superoxide dismutases in normal and disordered cells, it is essential to study protein variants with full metal contents. We describe the use of an Escherichia coli-based expression system for the overproduction of human intracellular wild type CuZn-superoxide dismutase (SOD), the CuZnSO...

In this article we compare outcomes of an open-inquiry and an expository version of a chemistry laboratory experiment at university level for 190 students. The aim of the study was to investigate if these two versions would result in different outcomes depending on the students' attitudes towards learning. We used a questionnaire to find out their...

More than 100 point mutations of the superoxide scavenger Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD; EC ) have been associated with the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, these mutations are scattered throughout the protein and provide no clear functional or structural clues to the underlying disease mechanism. Therefore,...

An essential property of human extracellular superoxide dismutase (hEC-SOD) is its affinity for heparin and heparan sulfate proteoglycans located on cell surfaces and in the connective tissue matrix. The C-terminal domain of hEC-SOD plays the major role in this interaction. This domain has an unusually high content of charged amino acids: six argin...

The C-terminal domain of human extracellular superoxide dismutase (hEC- SOD) plays a crucial role in the protein's interaction with heparin. Here we investigated this interaction in more detail by comparing the heparin-binding characteristics of two variants of hEC-SOD: the two fusion proteins containing the hEC-SOD C-terminal domain and a syntheti...

Human extracellular superoxide dismutase (hEC-SOD) is a secreted tetrameric protein involved in protection against oxygen free radicals. Since EC-SOD is too large a protein for structural determination by multi-dimensional NMR and attempts to crystallize the protein for X-ray structural determination have failed, the three-dimensional structure of...

The C-terminal, heparin-binding domain of human extracellular superoxide dismutase (hEC-SOD) has been studied as a fusion to human carbonic anhydrase II (HCAII). This technique allows the properties of the EC-SOD domain to be characterized. At the same time, it allows us to differentiate the contributions from the domain, from those properties orig...

The N-terminal domain, containing the 49 N-terminal amino-acid residues, of human extracellular superoxide dismutase (hEC-SOD) has been studied after construction of fusion proteins comprised of the defined domain and human carbonic anhydrase 11 (HCAII). The specific advantage of this technique is that it allows characterization of properties that...

Comparison of amino acid sequences have suggested similarities between the active site portions of the tetrameric, Cu- and Zn-containing glycoprotein, extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) and the dimeric CuZn-SOD. In the present study spectral and physical properties of EC-SOD were analyzed to further knowledge about the enzyme and to extend...

The secretory tetrameric extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) is the only glycosylated SOD isoenzyme. The importance of the carbohydrate moiety for the properties of the enzyme is unknown. An expression vector defining nonglycosylated EC-SOD (ngEC-SOD) was constructed by mutagenesis of the codon for Asn-89 into a codon for Gln. The vector wa...

Extracellular-superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD; 1.15.1.1,) is the major SOD isoenzyme in extra- cellular fluids such as plasma, lymph1 and synovial fluid2 but also occurs in tissues.3,4 EC-SOD is heterogenous with regard to binding to Heparin-Sepharose and can be separated into three fractions: A, without affinity; B with weak affinity; and C, with rel...

A complementary DNA clone from human placenta, encoding human extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD; superoxide:superoxide oxidoreductase, EC 1.15.1.1), has recently been isolated and characterized. An expression plasmid, based on the EC-SOD complementary DNA, was transfected into Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO-K1). The transfected cells sec...

The inhibition of human carbonic anhydrase II (carbonate hydro-lyase, EC 4.2.1.1) by tetrazole, 1,2,4-triazole, 2-nitrophenol, and chloral hydrate has been investigated. These inhibitors, together with phenol which has been studied previously (Simonsson, I., Jonsson, B.-H. and Lindskog, S. (1982) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 108, 1406-1412), can...

Five monovalent anions, I-, N3-, SCN-, NCO- and Au(CN)2-, were investigated as inhibitors of CO2 hydration catalyzed by human carbonic anhydrase II (carbonate hydro-lyase, EC 4.2.1.1). Predominantly uncompetitive inhibition patterns were observed at pH near 9 in all cases. While Dixon plots of Km/V vs. inhibitor concentration were linear, all the i...

Cd2+ derivatives of human carbonic anhydrases I and II and bovine red cell carbonic anhydrase (carbonate hydro-lyase, EC 4.2.1.1) have been prepared. The metal ion in these derivatives is readily displaced by Zn2+. The Cd2+-carbonic anhydrases have appreciable 4-nitrophenyl acetate hydrolase activities. These activities increase with pH as if depen...

Anions inhibit carbonic anhydrase-catalyzed reactions by binding to the zinc ion in the active center. The pH dependence of the inhibition of the esterase activity shows that anions predominantly bind to enzymes having a protonated catalytic group. Formally, anion binding can be described as a competition with OH− for a coordination site on the met...

113Cd-Substituted human and bovine erythrocyte carbonic anhydrases have been studied by 113Cd NMR as a function of pH and bicarbonate concentration. Plots of chemical shift versus pH give sigmoidal titration curves in the pH range of the study, 6.9 to 10.5. The pKa values vary from 9.2 to 9.7, which correlates well with available activity profiles...