Central Dogma, Dictionaries, and Functions: Using Programming Concepts to Simulate Biological Processes

Technologies like next-generation sequencing, proteomics, and high-throughput phenotyping have transformed the way we do biology. There is a continued need for scientists with computational skills to analyze biological data while understanding the underlying biological concepts. The Integrated training Model in Plant And ComputaTional Sciences (IMPACTS) is an interdisciplinary training program that trains doctoral students to employ computational and data science approaches to address grand challenges in plant biology. The first course in the curriculum, Foundations in Computational Plant Science , focuses on fundamental knowledge in computational and plant science through group learning and peer instruction while using real-world data. The lesson plan described here was developed by the 2019 cohort of IMPACTS trainees (authoring cohort) as part of a subsequent course on STEM teaching and learning. The authoring cohort collaborated to identify a gap in the Foundations curriculum and applied their learning about evidence-based instructional design to develop and subsequently teach the lesson in the next iteration of the course (2020). The lesson plan’s goal was to develop students’ abilities to apply dictionaries and functions as core tools in computational science to answer biological questions. The 2020 cohort that completed the lesson reported confidence in being able to effectively apply dictionaries and functions and provided feedback about modifications to improve lesson efficacy. This feedback was incorporated in the iterative version of this lesson. This lesson is designed to help bridge the gap between computer scientists and biologists by teaching them interdisciplinary concepts using real-world data.