Adaptación del Test de Micronúcleos al curso Organización Celular y Tisular del Profesorado de Educación Media, especialidad Ciencias Biológicas

El Test de Micronúcleos es un bioensayo ajustado para estudiar la salud de la población estandarizado en el proyecto internacional “HUman MicroNucleus XfoLiated cells”. En este artículo se presenta una propuesta de trabajo práctico aplicable a cursos de Formación Docente, donde se promueve que el estudiante conozca el test y su alcance a partir del análisis de artículos originales. Esto implica aprender a registrar, estandarizar e interpretar la presencia de micronúcleos en las células de la mucosa bucal. La elaboración del protocolo para realizar los registros y el informe correspondiente exigen dominio del marco teórico, trabajo colaborativo y capacidad de comunicación. Se plantea en paralelo al trabajo de laboratorio, tomar esta actividad como un ejemplo más, que permita a los estudiantes de profesorado redimensionar y reflexionar sobre el valor de los trabajos prácticos en el aprendizaje. Dichos trabajos se pueden plantear como una estrategia educativa integral, fomentando el aprendizaje significativo en un marco constructivista, lo cual implica un trabajo interdisciplinario y multicultural, como se plantea en la enseñanza basada en proyectos

Qualità ambientale interna e percezione del comfort negli uffici

La qualità ambientale interna (domini acustico, termico, visivo e qualità dell’aria) influisce sul comfort degli occupanti. In seguito ad un’analisi di norme, strumenti di certificazione ambientale e letteratura, sono stati simulati lo stato di fatto e il progetto di un ufficio della sede dell'ARPA Valle d'Aosta. Sono stati sviluppati un protocollo e una visualizzazione grafica per individuare un metodo di valutazione e rappresentazione della qualità ambientale interna e del comfort percepito

Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos (ABP): nueva tendencia con reminiscencias del pasado

Las modificaciones, las innovaciones a nivel educativo se caracterizan por efectuarse a un ritmo mucho más lento que los cambios en el ámbito sociocultural, razón por la cual muchas veces las renovaciones en la enseñanza no consiguen acompasar y satisfacer las necesidades de la sociedad reinante. Es por ello que el análisis, la reflexión permanente sobre las prácticas y los modelos didácticos desplegados en la actualidad, resultan ineludibles para comprender la realidad, captar las debilidades y fortalezas del sistema para así mejorarlo. En esta ocasión se puso sobre la mesa de análisis el “método por proyectos” o “enseñanza por proyectos”. Una vez más la polisemia de algunas expresiones o vocablos nos complica y no se sabe si todos evocamos lo mismo ante una misma expresión o palabra. Efectuar un recorrido histórico del tema puede ayudar a dilucidar, a poner luz sobre un “modelo de enseñanza y de aprendizaje” que no es nuevo como propuesta, pero que se ha re-fundado en distintos momentos históricos. Reflexionar juntos, aunar criterios sobre la temática, para alcanzar consensos que ayuden a mejorar las prácticas, y por ende a atender con éxito la diversidad, son algunos de los propósitos de este artículo, que aspira generar nuevas reflexiones e investigaciones en los más variados ámbitos educativos

Real and virtual biological science living laboratory for science teachers' formation : promoting global scientific literacy and critical thinking for sustainable development

Global attempts to renew scientific education aim to stop the decline of young people's interest in science and technology, and to promote the development of citizens' scientific literacy for sustainable development. Among other changes, these aims require the adaptation of K12 Biological Science Teacher’s training to meet the new objectives. Scientific literacy involves knowing science and how knowledge is developed and validated, recognizing the interactions between science, technology and society, that is, the nature of science (NoS; a set of meta-scientific contents that encompass historical, epistemological and sociological aspects of science with great value for scientific education). It also involves grasping of cognitive skills underlying critical thinking (CT; a set of cognitive abilities, including self-regulation and metacognitive processes) and creative problem solving. Therefore, scientific literacy contributes to making informed decisions, facilitating the participation of citizens in situations and dilemmas of scientific tenor. In addition, CT is closely related to the performance of educators in their professional work. Particularly, in the teaching of science, CT skills favour and enhance the learning of concepts and theories linked not only to science but also to the NoS. Considering the current conditions of middle-higher K12 Biological Science Teachers’ formation and classrooms´ limitations in our country and the region, we propose a pilot project aiming to promote the transformation of initial teachers´ training, seeking to improve the development of CT skills and to deepen NoS comprehension. It will involve the immersion of K12 Biological Science Teacher students in Biological Science Living Physical and "mirror" Virtual Reality Laboratories. These laboratories will be equipped with "do it yourself" (DIY), "do it with others" (DIWO) and "bring your own device" (BYOD) technologies for the implementation of research-type activities framed in the philosophy of the "fabrication laboratories". The virtual platform will also comprise a library with didactic resources under permissive licenses to ensure a broader impact. Within these environments, K12 Biological Science Teacher students will engage in the creation of didactic units involving problem solving and knowledge building in parallel to deeper understanding of scientific processes. We also hope to promote the creativity and innovation of the participants, and the appropriation of DIY/DIWO/BYOD and virtual reality technologies as educational resources in the classroom and everyday life. Thanks to the virtual environment, this approach would also allow to reach both National and International K12 Biological Science Teacher students and graduate Biological Science Teachers. Considering the universal access to the Internet and free access to educational platforms in several countries, we also hope to impact on the non-formal and informal Biological Science education and contribute to achieving quality education for all (Objective # 4 of the Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030, UNESCO) beyond geographical and cultural barriers. This pilot project will be implemented by an interinstitutional, multidisciplinary and international team. It will capitalize on confluent groups´ previous experience and complementary strengths in Science didactics (particularly biology), engineering, arts, virtual reality, fabrication, as well as open hardware and open software culture. The experimental approach corresponds to a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design with control groups, and formative and summative evaluation. As a result of the implementation of this educational innovation we expect to contribute to the improvement of Biological Science Teachers students´ CT skills and promote their active involvement in practical activities that should enhance their professional activity

Development and Metrological Characterization of a Multi-sensor Device for Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) monitoring

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), which affects people's health, comfort, well-being and productivity, combines thermal, visual, acoustic and air quality conditions. This work deals with design, development and metrological characterization of a low-cost multi-sensor device that is able to detect the quality conditions of indoor environments for IEQ purposes. The device, hereafter referred as PROMET&O (PROactive Monitoring for indoor EnvironmenTal quality & cOmfort) embeds a set of low-cost sensors that measure air temperature and relative humidity, illuminance, sound pressure level, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide. The basic architecture of the device is described and the design criteria that are related to the measurement requirements are highlighted. Particular attention has been paid towards the traceability assurance of the measurements provided by PROMET&O by means of specifically conceived calibration procedures, which have been tailored to the requirements of each measurement quantity. The calibration is based on the comparison to reference standards following commonly employed or ad-hoc developed technical procedures. The defined calibration procedures can be applied both for the single sensors and for the set of sensors integrated in the multi-sensor case. For the latter, the effects of the percentage of permeable case surface and the sensors allocation are also investigated. A preliminary uncertainty evaluation of the proposed multi-sensor device is reported for the carbon dioxide and the illuminance sensors taking the defined calibration procedures into account

LED fluorescence microscopy in the diagnosis of tuberculosis: Fading and restaining of smears for external quality assessment

AbstractBlinded rechecking is a method proposed for external quality assurance (EQA) of auramine-stained acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smears using fluorescence microscopy (FM), however, this procedure is not well developed and slides fading over time could compromise its implementation. Since bleaching of fluorescent molecules involves temperature-dependent chemical reactions, it is likely that low temperatures could slow down this process. We stored auramine-stained slides under different environmental conditions, including −20°C, and examined them over time. The slides stored in all the environments faded. At −20°C, fading was not reduced in relation to room temperature. Restaining and re-examining smears after five months showed that the slides containing saliva and storage at −20°C were associated with failure in AFB reappearance. In conclusion, the practice of freezing slides until they are viewed should be discouraged as it has a negative effect on blinded rechecking by reducing reading concordance after restaining. Specimen quality should be considered when interpreting FM-EQA results

Socioeconomic Status Is Not Related with Facial Fluctuating Asymmetry: Evidence from Latin-American Populations

The expression of facial asymmetries has been recurrently related with poverty and/or disadvantaged socioeconomic status. Departing from the developmental instability theory, previous approaches attempted to test the statistical relationship between the stress experienced by individuals grown in poor conditions and an increase in facial and corporal asymmetry. Here we aim to further evaluate such hypothesis on a large sample of admixed Latin Americans individuals by exploring if low socioeconomic status individuals tend to exhibit greater facial fluctuating asymmetry values. To do so, we implement Procrustes analysis of variance and Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) to estimate potential associations between facial fluctuating asymmetry values and socioeconomic status. We report significant relationships between facial fluctuating asymmetry values and age, sex, and genetic ancestry, while socioeconomic status failed to exhibit any strong statistical relationship with facial asymmetry. These results are persistent after the effect of heterozygosity (a proxy for genetic ancestry) is controlled in the model. Our results indicate that, at least on the studied sample, there is no relationship between socioeconomic stress (as intended as low socioeconomic status) and facial asymmetries