Fourth year BEd student, Mark Donnelly, appears on the cover of this month's issue of Primary Science Review. He is pictured undertaking DNA analysis with an audience of highly interested P7 pupils. The picture is taken from an article in this issue co-authored by Ivor Hickey and Jim Beggs from the Science Department of St Mary's and Colette Murphy and Karen Carlisle from the Graduate School of Education at QUB.
This issue of Primary Science Review specialises in forensic science and the article describes a project in which children in P7 learnt about DNA fingerprinting. The project involved students and lecturers from the college. The students undertook practical DNA fingerprinting in classrooms using molecular biology kits from Bio-Rad specially developed for use in schools. Lectures helped the children to analyse the results of their experiments.
The children really took to this approach as all were very familiar with the use of DNA fingerprinting from television dramas and current affairs programmes. They embedded the molecular biology into the rest of their educational experience by developing scenarios about a hypothetical crime. The data from the DNA analysis became the cornerstone of several exciting pieces of creative writing and were turned into courtroom dramas by the children.
The work had previously been described in the Times Educational Supplement.