Table 3.
Threshold concepts resulting from project phases
| Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phases 4 and 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Individual versus populations of molecules | Individual versus populations of molecules | Steady state |
| Energy transfer and transformation | Energy transfer and transformation | Biochemical pathway dynamics and regulation |
| Steady-state and open systems | Equilibrium, including ideas related to steady state, open systems, reversibility of processes, and dynamic processes | Physical basis of interactions |
| Reversibility of processes/reactions (equilibrium) | Thermodynamics of macromolecular structure formation | |
| Intermolecular and intramolecular interactions (how molecules interact) | Intermolecular and intramolecular interactions | Free energy |
| Spatial/scale relationships | Spatial/scale relationships | |
| Entropy/enthalpy/free energy | Entropy/enthalpy/free energy | |
| pH, pKa, and charge | pH, pKa, and charge | |
| Biochemical visualization | ||
| Moving between different structural representations of molecules | New concept added in phase 3: regulation | |
| Reading and understanding chemical formulas and structures | ||
| Interpreting graphs | ||
| Mental models and text representations | ||
| Biochemical visualization | ||
| Probabilistic thinking | ||
| Dynamic/fluctuating processes | ||
| Randomness versus directedness |