Protein Structure and Function: An Interdisciplinary Multimedia-Based Guided-Inquiry Education Module for the High School Science Classroom

Here we present a multidisciplinary educational unit intended for general, advanced placement, or international baccalaureate-level high school science, focused on the three-dimensional structure of proteins and their connection to function and disease. The lessons are designed within the framework of the Next Generation Science Standards to make learning more relevant to daily life, and to help high school students engage in and understand advanced topics beyond the typical high school chemistry or biology curriculum. The unit involves lectures, videos, a hands-on activity, a research paper, a laboratory experiment, and a culminating project. Students are introduced to protein crystallography, the protein data bank, and the computer program PyMOL (free download for educational use) to visualize protein structure in three dimensions. Clear improvements in student comprehension of protein structure and function have been documented after implementation of the unit.