Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists (review)

The premise of the new NRC study is that the undergraduate experience in biology is lagging seriously behind "how biologists design, perform and analyze experiments" (p. 1). This gap will make it difficult to prepare our students to pursue careers in biomedical research. The study represents our best exploration to date of just how much the nature of scientific investigation is changing and how little this remarkable shift is reflected in what undergraduates learn and how they learn. Although this report is about biology, it also raises serious questions about how we present all of our disciplines to our undergraduate students. It is well worth serious consideration by educators in a variety of other fields as well. Although the primary focus of Bio2010 is on how to prepare the next generation of biomedical scientists, the issues themselves are relevant to a much broader audience. What should all of our students know about science? Can we find ways for our students to learn science the way researchers learn science?

How is science changing? The major influence on the sciences is the impact of the remarkable new computing power and the development of new forms of mathematical analysis that now allow investigators to study much more complex phenomena than they could in the past. In addition, Bio2010 discusses two elements specific to the life sciences: the influence of what we have learned about recombinant DNA and the introduction of new forms of instrumentation. As interest in the New Biology grows, it is drawing scientists toward a new and much more integrated approach to research that builds upon the insights, methodologies, and conceptual approaches of a number of allied disciplines. These are difficult things to teach and equally difficult to learn.

Bio2010 shows that "the connections between the biological sciences and the physical sciences, mathematics and computer science are rapidly becoming deeper and more extensive" (p. 1). To compound the changes even more, scientists now take advantage of cyberspace to interact with each other differently, to gather and interpret their findings, and to communicate their work in new ways.

Is any of this new way of doing science and communicating about science reflected in the curriculum and in the experiences of undergraduates? Not much! According to Bio2010, the teaching of biology has not changed substantially in over two decades. Meanwhile, the science itself has undergone a remarkable transformation. The disconnect between the biology that students study and the realities of the most exciting and advanced work in the life sciences is a matter for deep concern not only for life scientists but also for everybody else. We are not preparing our young people for careers in the New Biology nor are we exposing other students to the wonders of this work and what it might mean for their own lives and their own professional pursuits. According to Bio2010, we are preparing our students for biology as it was when its content became frozen in the admissions requirements of medical schools and in the material required to do well on the Graduate Record Exams (GRE) and the Medical College Admissions Test (MCATs.) These external expectations can seriously dampen anyone's enthusiasm for reform.

How can we draw emerging areas of science into the undergraduate curriculum? Bio2010 offers a prescription to deal with this malady: "scientific knowledge, practice with experimental design, quantitative abilities and communication skills" (p. 2). The real challenge is to rethink the curriculum so that students can experience the New Biology in an authentic way and then redesign the standards and tests that document what students have learned. If something is important to the understanding of the New Biology, it ought to be integrated into the biology curriculum, not separated out as a prerequisite studied...