Innovation in Biotechnology
SCIENCE:The Biotechnology class with their handmade models that represent DNA processes
Friday, 09 November 2012
At CPUT lecturers are finding creative ways to infuse innovation in teaching and learning.
Associate Prof Lynne McMaster recently devised an innovative class project that would ensure Biotechnology students gain relevant knowledge of several complex processes, taught earlier this year in the molecular biology class.
The brief was to construct biological molecular DNA process models, which could be used as teaching aids. Students had to make use of materials that cost less than R100.
And the result – several innovative models, which not only showed students' understanding of the curriculum but their flair for art.
Several groups used wire art, while others made use of building blocks, rope, clay, cardboard and bottle-tops.
INNOVATIVE: A Biotechnology student shows-off his creative model that represents a DNA process
Student Mhlangebese Golela used his wire art skills to build a model that illustrated a transcription process.
“I grew up in Umtata and used to make wire cars. When we sat down to work out the structure, we thought of using different colour beads to represent the different processes,” he says.
Mhlangebese says the task was a challenge, but helped the class grasp the various science processes.
His classmate Gayaatoeniesah Terblanche and her group used colourful bottle tops and building blocks to represent HIV processes in the human body.
McMaster says she is impressed with the students and their innovative models.
McMaster says the models are of such a high standard that they will be used is future classes as teaching aids.
By Candes Keating
Written by CPUT News
Email: news@cput.ac.za
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