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Major Workshops

Thursday June 8

Diane C. Rein, Jennifer Sharkey and Jane Kinkus, Purdue University
Integrating Bioinformatic Instruction into Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Curricula

This computer-based laboratory workshop deals with teaching the concepts of bioinformatic research discovery at the undergraduate level in a practical, hands-on, active learning experience that mimics bioinformatic research currently practiced by research scientists within their laboratories. The intent is to overlay, or integrate, bioinformatic literacy into existing laboratory exercises and/or curricula. The workshop will be divided into two components. The first one aims to "teach the teachers", providing the background as to what is available for bioinformatic instruction. The aim is to develop an understanding of what bioinformatics resources exist, how information is organized within them and how to migrate between them, such that each instructor can create his or her own set of bioinformatics instruction modules into existing laboratory exercises of their current curriculum or to add additional bioinformatics exercises when needed. The workshop will focus to resources at NCBI, EBI and TIGER, but will include others as needed. It will also introduce sequence similarity searching, concentrating to BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Sequence Tool) and its underlying mathematical principles.

The second component of the workshop will provide an example of bioinformatics instruction by demonstrating a bioinformatic instruction module created by the workshop presenter. It will showcase at least one example of how bioinformatics can be integrated into current undergraduate biology laboratory instruction and how that exercise can be extended to more advanced exercises at the upper level of undergraduate instruction. Participants themselves will perform part, if not all, of the bioinformatics exercise protocol as part of the workshop, as time permits.

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