'How to be a Ribosome': The Development of a Novel Method of Teaching Protein Translation in the High School Classroom
As part of its educational outreach department, The Cornell Centre for Materials Research (CCMR) maintains a library of experiment kits that can be loaned free of charge to any science teacher in the United States. These kits allow teachers to deliver innovative lessons on a wide variety of Science topics aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. This project aimed to develop a new kit for high school Biology, a subject which is currently lacking in the lending library. This kit, which teaches the central biochemical process of protein translation, was built around the development of a novel set of 3D-printed classroom manipulatives- jigsaw-like pieces which allow students to actively translate an mRNA code to an amino acid sequence. A set of these pieces, a module guiding teachers through the lesson, student activity sheets, and an accompanying PowerPoint presentation are presented as the components of the completed kit.