Barcoding Life's Matrix: Engaging Students as Citizen Scientists in the Barcode of Life Initiative

生命条形码倡议（BOLI）是一个国际生物多样性合作组织，它使用能够唯一识别物种群的短DNA序列创建了一个地球植物和动物的遗传百科全书。这个战略项目的目标是通过让学生参与一个国际项目来提供生物物种的鉴定，从而使他们对STEM职业感兴趣。这项工作建立在先前成功的扩展活动的基础上，这些活动使高中学生和教师沉浸在科学界的实际工作中，对海峡群岛海带森林和海洋保护区的动植物进行DNA条形码。在三年的时间里，九组10人的学生在为期一周的住宿营地学习DNA测序和开发在海峡岛海带森林中发现的精选鱼类和无脊椎动物物种的条形码。在每个节目环节，客座科学家和其他专业人士向学生展示各种科学和专业工作场所的职业前景。6个为期5天的教师专业发展工作坊，提高教师的教学内容和技术水平。在第二个工作坊中，老师们参与了条形码的制作，并与学生们一起练习他们对内容的传递。在研讨会结束时，教师们会收到指导学生完成16单元课程所需的材料、设备和用品，这些课程与州和国家标准密切相关。这些教学模块描述了如何使用概念、工具和技能来解决21世纪工作场所不同部分的基本问题、问题和目标。他们在高中实验室实施，另外2700名学生参与其中。学生和教师会议之间的联系将是多种多样的，以确定最有效的方式来连接教师和学生。公民科学家的条形码门户网站是一个分布式生物信息学平台，旨在为从事DNA条形码的非专业人员提供用户界面。符合或超过质量标准的数据有资格输出到专业数据库。该评价衡量的是学生在多大程度上提高了对科学的态度、科学知识、技能和批判性推理能力，以及在科学调查中应用各种技术工具的能力。还调查了教师转变科学课程以吸引学生参与科学过程的能力增强，并增加了他们追求STEM职业的兴趣。该项目还为STEM社区提供了从事科学和教学的新基因工具、数据库和教学模型。

The Barcode of Life Initiative (BOLI) is an international biodiversity collaboration that creates a genetic encyclopedia of Earth's plants and animals using short DNA sequences that uniquely identify species groups. The goal of this strategies project is to interest students in STEM careers by engaging them in an international project to provide identification of biological species. This work builds on prior successful extended activities that immerse high school students and teachers in the real work of the scientific community to do DNA barcoding of flora and fauna in the Channel Islands kelp forest and marine protected areas. Over the three year period, nine cohorts of ten students each learn about DNA sequencing and developing barcodes of select fish and invertebrate species found within the Channel Island kelp forests in week-long residential camps. During each program session, guest scientists and other professionals expose students to career perspectives from a variety of scientific and professional workplace settings. Six five-day teacher professional development workshops enhance teachers' content and technical mastery. In a second workshop, the teachers participate in the barcoding and practice their delivery of the content with students. At the end of the workshop, teachers receive the materials, equipment and supplies needed to guide students through the 16-unit curriculum closely aligned with state and national standards. These instructional modules describe how the concepts, tools, and skills are used to address basic questions, problems, and goals that characterize different segments of the 21st century workplace. They are implemented in high school laboratories, engaging another 2700 students. The connection between the student and teacher sessions will be varied to determine the most effective way to connect the teachers and the students. A Barcoding for Citizen Scientists Portal, a distributed bioinformatics platform, is developed to serve as a user interface for non-professionals engaged in DNA barcoding. Data that meet or exceed quality standards are eligible for export to the professional database. The evaluation measures the extent to which students increase their attitude toward science, their scientific knowledge, skills and critical reasoning abilities, and their ability to apply a variety of technological tools in scientific investigations. Also investigated is the increased ability of teachers to transform their science curriculum to engage students in the process of science and increase their interest in pursuing STEM careers. The project also provides the STEM community with new genetic tools, databases and instructional models for engaging in and teaching science.