Cutting-Edge DNA Web Sites

Science Magazine Honors Cutting-Edge DNA Web Sites


"When Dave Micklos and his colleagues launched Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s first DNA Learning Center Web site, Micklos said they just wanted to 'get a little information online about our institution.' Fifteen years later, that Web site has grown into a portal to 18 different content areas, offering fascinating, interactive genetics learning experiences to more than 7 million viewers a year.


Because of their remarkable scope and value as educational tools, the journal Science is honoring the DNA Learning Center (DNALC) Web sites with the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE).


Science developed the prize to promote the best science education online materials. The acronym SPORE suggests a reproductive element adapted to develop, often in adverse conditions, into something new. These winning projects can be viewed similarly, as the seeds of progress in science education, despite considerable challenges to educational innovation. Each month, Science publishes an article by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The article about the DNALC Web sites—written by Micklos, multimedia design team leader Sue Lauter, and Web site producer and evaluator Amy Nissette—was published on 23 December.


'We want to recognize innovators in science education,' said Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science. 'At the same time, this competition will promote those Web sites with the most potential to benefit science students and teachers. The publication of an article in Science on each winning site will help guide people to important online resources, thereby promoting science literacy.'


'The Web sites act as a gateway,' said Melissa McCartney, editorial fellow at Science, 'providing access to the world of molecular biology, genetics, bioinformatics, biotechnology, genetic disorders, cancer, neuroscience, and plant genetics. Visitors explore topics through animation, videos, online lab notebooks, and interactive inquiry-based experiments.'


Micklos, whose background and education are in biology education and science journalism, was hired by James Watson, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in 1982 to start its first development and public information offices. Watson had earlier won the Nobel Prize for helping deduce the structure of DNA, and he was a pioneering advocate of communicating scientific advances to the public, especially to ward off the kind of public distrust that had previously grown up around such topics as recombinant DNA and cloning.


'Before that time, scientists did science and nothing else,' Micklos said. 'Jim Watson was very prescient in knowing this had to change.'  -------------------- "


http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2011/1227sp_spore.shtml


DNA Learning Center
Preparing students and families to thrive in the gene age
http://www.dnalc.org/


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