CLS ABE Program's January 2024 Teacher's Class Successfully Completed

With cutting-edge scientific research leading to the cultivation of cutting-edge talents, the CLS has taken the initiative to undertake public affairs and public education since its inception, striving to raise the level of science popularization and scientific spirit of the whole society. In addition to sharing the latest research achievements of the CLS, the CLS will introduce the Amgen Biotech Experience ("ABE") program in 2021, a global hands-on science project.

In order to better promote the development of biology teaching and research in Beijing, as well as to promote the improvement of teaching concepts of biology across the country, and to play a radiant role, the CLS has entered into a strategic cooperation with the Research Center for Teaching and Learning in Basic Education of the Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences (hereinafter referred to as "BTRCBES") this year. From January 12-14, 2024, 18 high school biology teachers from 12 districts and 18 high schools in Beijing completed a 2.5-day course.

At the opening ceremony in the afternoon of January 12, Mr. Qiao Wenjun, Beijing's biology subject leader, Beijing's special teacher, and a researcher of the Basic Teaching and Research Center of the Academy of Educational Sciences, said that in order to better play the leading role of teachers and improve the quality of classroom teaching, the Biology Teaching Committee of the Beijing Institute of Education and the Chinese site of ABE have reached a cooperation. This ABE course experience is the first training for the "backbone of experimental teaching" teachers of biology in Beijing, and we will strive to build a brand and form a series in the future, returning to the essence of the subject; we also hope that the teachers will cherish the opportunity of learning, and bring the knowledge back to the classroom, and teach it to more students. Director Prof. Zhang Guiyou then spoke, he thanked Mr. Qiao for his strong support, and also hoped that the participants would learn knowledge and pass on wisdom in this century-old building of Tsinghua University, and provide assistance to the cultivation of talents in the field of biological disciplines. Finally, Dr. Jiang Yi, Director of the CLS Office and ABE China Mainland Project Leader, introduced the project and combined with examples to introduce that the biotechnology being widely used in research laboratories has been designed as a curriculum to be moved into the teaching laboratories, hoping that teachers will gain something from the experience and bring the ABE project back to their own schools, so that high school students will have the opportunity to experience the charm of scientific research first-hand in their secondary school classrooms.

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Three teachers spoke at the opening ceremony

After the opening ceremony, the course experience officially began. This course was carried out by Dr. Peng Li and Dr. Yaoxi Li, the backbone teachers of the Modern Life Science Experimental Teaching Center of Tsinghua University, and the participants completed the following experimental practical exercises: plasmid extraction, enzyme digestion and electrophoresis detection, recovery of target nucleic acid fragments, detection of recovered nucleic acid fragments, ligation and transformation of the positive clones for PCR identification experiments. In addition to molecular experiments, the protein chemistry part was also added this time, completing Ni column affinity chromatography experiments for induced expression proteins and SDS-PAGE assays for purified proteins. Dr. Li Peng also interspersed with a presentation on experimental teaching, which provided references for the trainees to optimize experimental teaching from the aspects of topic selection, optimization of experimental records and conditions, literature reading and career penetration. The training was rich in content, compact and targeted, and the herbarium visit was arranged during the PCR waiting time to increase the interest, and extensive discussion was carried out after the experiment, which achieved the expected training goal. Teaching team member Ma Caiping participated in this activity.

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Two teachers are teaching

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Herbarium visit

This event was a great success as the first training in 2024, kicking off this year's training, and we look forward to more students and teachers joining us in the future to learn and grow together.

Participants have expressed from the front-line teaching practice, there is such an in-depth, immersive learning opportunity is very rare, thanks to the teachers in the holiday hard guidance and patience in answering questions, the training is full of harvests, intoxicated, feel the joy of acquiring knowledge, look forward to having the opportunity to participate again!

（Translated by deepl）