Barrette-Ng Isabelle H
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ. 2011 Jul;39(4):332-8. doi: 10.1002/bmb.20512.
In introductory biochemistry courses, it is often a struggle to teach the basic concepts of acid-base chemistry in a manner that is relevant to biological systems. To help students gain a more intuitive and visual understanding of abstract acid-base concepts, a simple graphical construct called the pH ruler Java applet was developed. The applet allows students to visualize the abundance of different protonation states of diprotic and triprotic amino acids at different pH values. Using the applet, the student can drag a widget on a slider bar to change the pH and observe in real time changes in the abundance of different ionization states of this amino acid. This tool provides a means for developing more complex inquiry-based, active-learning exercises to teach more advanced topics of biochemistry, such as protein purification, protein structure and enzyme mechanism.
在基础生物化学课程中，要以与生物系统相关的方式讲授酸碱化学的基本概念往往颇具难度。为帮助学生对抽象的酸碱概念获得更直观、形象的理解，开发了一种名为pH标尺Java小程序的简单图形结构。该小程序能让学生直观看到在不同pH值下，二元和三元氨基酸不同质子化状态的丰度情况。学生可通过该小程序在滑块栏上拖动一个小部件来改变pH值，并实时观察该氨基酸不同电离状态丰度的变化。此工具为开展更复杂的基于探究的主动学习练习提供了一种手段，以教授生物化学中更高级的主题，如蛋白质纯化、蛋白质结构和酶作用机制。
