Cannibalism, Kuru, and Mad Cows: Prion Disease As a “Choose-Your-Own-Experiment” Case Study to Simulate Scientific Inquiry in Large Lectures

Antonio Serrano, Jeffrey Liebner and Justin K Hines

PLOS Biology, 2016, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Despite significant efforts to reform undergraduate science education, students often perform worse on assessments of perceptions of science after introductory courses, demonstrating a need for new educational interventions to reverse this trend. To address this need, we created An Inexplicable Disease, an engaging, active-learning case study that is unusual because it aims to simulate scientific inquiry by allowing students to iteratively investigate the Kuru epidemic of 1957 in a choose-your-own-experiment format in large lectures. The case emphasizes the importance of specialization and communication in science and is broadly applicable to courses of any size and sub-discipline of the life sciences.This piece from our Education series uses prion disease as the basis for an active-learning case study that simulates scientific inquiry with a choose-your-own-experiment design. Applicable to courses of any size and subdiscipline of biology.

Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:1002351

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002351

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