Inquiry-based biology through a 1963 textbook!

UK-bound Sreelakshmi ma'am, a DK Publishing veteran was planning to travel light. She knew we loved books and would take great care of them, so she invited us to pick some. Sifting through a few pages of 'Biological Science: An Inquiry Into Life, 1st Edition (1963)' I realized I was holding something very special.

BSCS High School Biology: Yellow Version is initiated by the American Institute of Biological Sciences. A word on BSCS. The Biological Sciences Curriculum Study produced three versions of a high school biology course initially, which were published in 1963 after three years of field testing. The three versions were: Blue, a molecular biology approach; Green, an ecology approach; and Yellow, a cellular biology approach. John A. Moore helmed a team of writers, artists, consultants, and reviewers that went into hundreds for the yellow version.

By the time the team assembled to write and field test (1960-63), a brief overview of the scientific advances till then:

• Jonas Salk's Polio vaccine just declared safe and effective 5 years ago.
• Marshall Nirenberg and Matthaei deciphered the genetic code.
• Watson-Crick-Wilkins won the Nobel.
• Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce had just developed integrated circuits.
• The space wars had just begun, and the US was losing an edge.
• Kornberg had yet to synthesize DNA in the lab.

The challenge with the team was both how and what to teach in biology. They took a radical cellular biology approach to teaching and also included teaching 'evolution' something most of the textbooks were avoiding then.

FOREWARNINGS from the FIRST EDITION's FOREWORD

At the current rate of scientific advance, there is about four times as much significant biological knowledge today as in 1930, and about sixteen times as much as in 1900. By the year 2000, at this rate of increase, there will be a hundred times as much biology to "cover" in the introductory course as at the beginning of the century.

The universal accusation is that biology is an information-intensive, content-overloaded subject. Because we haven't paid heed to be selective with our content till the NCF (2005) or have we?

We are profoundly convinced that the major fault in the teaching of biology and other sciences in secondary schools is that emphasis has been placed on authoritative content - facts, concepts, principles - instead of being placed on the investigative processes of science (emphasis is mine) and the history of scientific ideas.

The Position Paper on Teaching Science (NCF 2005) speaks about this balancing between the content and science process skills.

The BSCS emphasis was treating and pitching science as 'investigation and inquiry'. The BSCS materials like Laboratory Blocks and the Invitations to Enquiry, as well as the Special Investigations, were integrated into a three-dimensional framework of ideas.

The 3D Framework of Ideas includes a balanced consideration of

• living organisms
• all levels of living organization, and
• the themes to cover the above two

The nine themes that the book considered were:

1. science as investigation and inquiry
2. the history of biological concepts
3. the complementarity of structure and function
4. diversity of type and unity of pattern
5. change of organisms through time - evolution
6. genetic continuity
7. the complementarity of organism and environment
8. regulation and homeostasis
9. the biological roots of behavior

In the preface, Dr. John Moore says:

We were to impart an understanding of biological inquiry, not merely the data it has yielded. We were also to eliminate the awkwardness of unnecessary terms and unnecessary facts.

The book presents its inquiring facets through 3 parts. UNITY, DIVERSITY, and CONTINUITY. Never had such a profoundly simple trifurcation of a textbook except Albert Lehninger's Biochemistry, 1st edition (1975). Lehninger's Biochemistry, in my view, is the way a biochemistry, nay a science, nay a textbook should be written. Approachable and scholarly. That is for another post. Small trivia here. The chapter dealing with the Physiology of Cells on page 139 has a mention of Lehninger's work under additional reading!

ON DESIGN & OTHER SNIPPETS

Flipping through the textbook you notice,

The two-page timeline can make any Midjourney/Dall.e generation's designers proud.

"The book is profusely illustrated with excellent drawings and pictures." ~ The American Biology Teacher (1965) 27 (7): 570, University of California Press

The pages 49 to 52 feature excerpts from Robert Hook's Micrographia!

Here is a paragraph on the double helical model of DNA.

Observe the paragraph on the right. The choice of words 'used evidence gained by studying the DNA molecules with X-rays'. Whose sample is this? Know the secret of photo 51.

In April 2023, based on new evidence, scientists concluded that Franklin was a contributor and "equal player" in the discovery process of DNA, rather than otherwise, as may have been presented subsequently after the time of the discovery. (Maddie Burakoff, AP News)

And, Rachel Carson's just-released book, Silent Spring (1962) makes an appearance in the additional reading section on page 719. Paraphrasing John McEnroe, "You cannot be this serious!"

Sample some of the end-of-chapter questions.

1. An estimated 200,000,000 cases of malaria occurred in 1961. Is the prediction that malaria will be all but wiped out by 1980 a reasonable one?
2. Suppose one of the volunteers who drank swamp water had contracted malaria. Would this fact alone have provided conclusive evidence of the cause of malaria? Why or why not?
3. Is there really such a thing as pure science - that is, science with no possible practical use? Explain.
4. How would the mechanists' approach to the problem of living things encourage experiment and observation?
5. In what sense is a community a self-sufficient unit?
6. Why would it have been necessary to postulate a process such as meiosis even if no evidence that it occurs was available?
7. What are some of the unsolved problems of gene action? (In 1963!)
8. What insights into the political, social, and technological problems presently facing man does the study of cultural evolution provide?

A frontrunner that held a candle to inquiry and interdisciplinarity with a strong emphasis on the process of doing science, this '63 classic urges us to see all the biological facts as a part of a unified whole. How? By stressing the unique features of the nature of life and of the process of living - in another words, what life is and what it does.

On a personal note also I was holding something very special. It is Sreelakshmi ma'am's 'family' textbook that has already served two generations of graduates in her family. The next in line 'inheritance' is due shortly and, this book was lent to me only for a few months. That is what life is and that is what it does in a beautiful way! What a dream read.

Thank you, ma'am.