A major goal of science education is to turn novices (students) into experts (scientists or science literates) with a minimum amount of pain, effort, and time. However, transfer of biology knowledge from instructor to student usually results in a loss of the rich interconnections that an expert has. The papers in this set describe efforts to restore and exercise these interconnections in the knowledge of the student. This first paper provides a rationale for and overview of the general approach taken which is to: (1) design a formal and systematic representation of biology knowledge in the form of a semantic network of concepts and the relationships between them; (2) build a set of computer-based tools to support the design and construction of semantic networks for particular areas of biology; and (3) build a set of computer-based games to present semantic networks to students along with tasks which will require students to exercise the interconnections among concepts. Also discussed are: previous studies of methods for improving integration of new information; previous work in knowledge representation; and reasons for selecting the particular representation method used (which stem from practical constraints arising either from instructional considerations or from the capabilities of current computer systems). (Author/JN)