Local material-based DNA experiment (LMBE): viable alternative approach for biochemistry laboratory
Florentina Maria Titin Supriyanti, Heli Siti Halimatul Munawaroh, Gun Gun Gumilar, Rahmat Setiadi

Department of Chemistry Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the implementation of e-learning to ensure the teaching process does not halt utterly due to the crisis. However, e-learning courses alone are less adequate to provide hands-on skills regarding laboratory experiments. The course designed emphasizes the development of student practical chemistry skills and creativity in conducting isolation and detection of DNA at home. The context of ^varieties of tomatoes^ provides students with an opportunity to study how genetics affects phenotype and how to see fruits DNA through an experiment. In this experiment, students were exposed to scientific methods and started their activity by defining the problem. The lab format also provides students to analyze the basic principle functions of each reagent used for DNA extraction and was challenged to explore alternative compounds to substitute standard chemicals. Afterwards, the students designed local material-based experiments (LMBE), as the way to develop creative and practical chemistry skills including critical analysis on the alternative experimental design, primary results interpretation and analysis, and scientific writing. In the second part, the students were introduced to learn the principles of electrophoresis as one of the molecular genetics techniques and built their homemade electrophoresis to visualize the extracted DNA from previous activity. To this end, the LMBE is serving an alternative approach to the aim of developing students^ practical and creativity skills in biochemistry laboratory during stay at home.

Keywords: biochemistry laboratory, creative thinking, DNA, electrophoresis, hands-on learning, local material-based experiment

Topic: Learning / Teaching Methodologies and Assessment