ABLE 2019 Session des Affiches (Posters)

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Explaining the Scientific Method to First Year Biology Students in an Accessible Manner

Charlotte de Araujo, Nicole Pereira, Karen J. Puddephatt, Lynda H. McCarthy, Andrew E. Laursen; Ryerson University

The scientific method paired with the practice of statistics is widely implemented to analyze, interpret and derive conclusions regarding a dataset. This laboratory exercise introduced first year biology students to the scientific method, applying it to evaluate how brown planaria (Dugesia tigrina) responds to light. In the laboratory setting, students were required to formulate a research question and hypothesis, design a study, record observations, gather data and perform statistical calculations (mean, median, standard deviation, t-tests), receiving feedback from their peers and teaching assistants. When surveyed, less than half of the students felt they had a strong background in mathematics or were comfortable in the subject. To resolve this, we produced multiple videos enabling students to review the content to help recall the material. These resources introduced students to terminology, provided them opportunities to practice usage of these terms, as well as instructions on how to perform statistical calculations. We employed an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to determine if the students who viewed the videos performed better on the statistical analysis and interpretation portion. Based on ANCOVA, the wet laboratory experiments in conjunction with video resources, resulted in increased student performance in the laboratory component compared to previous iterations without video tools.

Introducing Fundamental Microscopy Skills in a “Stage Wise” Manner to First Year Biology Students

Charlotte de Araujo, Karen J. Puddephatt, Gavin Ridgeway, Lynda H. McCarthy, Andrew E. Laursen; Ryerson University

The microscope is an ubiquitous tool in the undergraduate biology laboratory. Implementing a hierarchical approach, students were introduced to skills in microscopy. Initially, students attempted to locate and examine a specimen on a prepared slide. Subsequently, students employed the microscope to recognize and describe the stages of mitosis in plant cells, observing particular features for each phase in onion (Allium) root tip. During the session, students created a wet mount with Brown planaria (Dugesia tigrina) and practiced using the microscope to observe live organisms. While developing skills in microscopy, parallel laboratory activities also included creating scientific illustrations and quantifying the proportion of cells in each stage of the cell cycle, integrating research skills (gathering, analyzing, interpreting data) as part of the exercise.  In addition, we have adapted peer-to-peer teaching, where upper year students created a video microscopy tutorial. This supplemental resource provided first year students with an overview of the standard procedures and key components of a microscope. After reviewing the video, a majority of biology students felt more confident and comfortable using a microscope and more aware of practices which contribute to improper use. Coupling in-laboratory and online resources promoted student development of practical techniques.

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience in a Senior Cell & Molecular Biology Laboratory Course

Laura Atkinson, Mount Royal University

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) offer students the ability to experience research during their undergraduate studies. While independent studies projects have generally achieved this in the past, demand for undergraduate research positions exceeds their availability at most institutions leading to the rise in popularity of CUREs. This poster will explore the use of a CURE in a fourth year Cell & Molecular Biology laboratory course. In this course, students used a cell culture model to investigate an aspect of the morphological and biochemical alterations that occur during the process of myogenesis. Over the semester, students identified a specific research question, designed a series of experiments, collected and analyzed their data and presented their research in the form of a manuscript and presentation. Although set assessment dates aimed for completion of certain experiments, grading focused on students having gone through the scientific process and their ability to troubleshoot when experiments didn’t work. This type of assessment challenged them to integrate fundamental background knowledge from their previous courses with critical thinking and advanced research methodology. Overall, CUREs are effective in exciting and engaging the students as well as providing them with a unique undergraduate research experience.

Is Mutation a Creative or Destructive Force in Evolution?

William Beachly, Hastings College

Most biologists would agree it is both, but how does one present the subtle distinctions to undergraduates in an engaging, exploratory, and data-generating laboratory exercise? AVIDA* offers a perfect platform, modeling virtual organisms as mutations occur at random locations in their genome. As in real haploid replicators, any mutation may or may not affect the fitness-correlated outcome of a successful phenotype, but is more likely to be disruptive than constructive. However, without mutations, constructive new phenotypic functions are unable to evolve. With AVIDA, students set the rate of mutations and measure the latency in generations required for new functions to evolve. Each is like how a new biochemical pathway due to mutations in enzyme-coding genes allows a bacterial population to metabolize novel chemical substrates (either for energy or as defense against antibiotics.) A graphing of class data and simple statistical analysis tests the student-generated hypotheses regarding the relationship between mutation rate and innovations. This is illustrated with data obtained by freshman biology majors at Hastings College, as well as examples of novel AVIDA labs utilized in upper division courses and labs prepared by other educators and shared on the QUBEShub.

*AVIDA is a program designed by researchers at Michigan State University to evolve virtual organisms with genomes that mutate at random and can fortuitously develop Boolean functions that can help Avidians replicate, just as haploid organisms do. AVIDA-ED provides a free, and easy to learn, experimental platform for the study of evolution in which students can design experiments to test hypotheses that relate to actual organisms and real-world concerns such as antibiotic resistance.

Service Learning in the Sciences

Michael Berger, Washington State University – Vancouver

Many courses in the natural sciences are focused on the generation of quantifiable data and empirical results in student assignments. Because service learning projects do not necessarily provide a quantifiable end product, they are not commonly integrated into science courses. As a result, students are not exposed to the transformative nature of service learning and do not develop partnerships with the community that could carry well beyond a single course. An understanding of a student’s perception of a service learning project can help faculty, service-learning administration staff, community partners, and graduate student teaching assistants develop effective service-learning assignments that result in a transformative learning experience. I will discuss the integration of a service learning assignment in a non-majors general biology course. Pre- and post-assessment Likert-scale survey data will be presented to address student learning goals: (1) whether working with a community partner would be rewarding; (2) perceived benefit of service learning as a transformative experience; (3) contribution to the community. I will address potential limitations and solutions to service learning projects involving non-traditional student populations on a commuter campus. The alignment of work between community partners and course concepts, and student’s perception of future civic engagement, will be discussed.

CRISPR Plants: A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience

Dawn Carter, Rochester Institute of Technology

With the rapid advances in gene editing using CRISPR/Cas 9 and associated technologies, undergraduate students are seeking opportunities to learn about and experience this exciting technology. Plant Molecular Biology is a laboratory based upper level elective course at RIT. We describe the development of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) to explore CRISPR/Cas 9 editing in Arabidopsis thaliana. Groups of students selected gene targets, designed guide RNAs, produced plasmids containing the guide RNAs, and introduced the plasmids into Arabidopsis thaliana using Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated floral dip transformation. In addition, we performed in vitro assays to determine the ability of our guide RNA sequences to target and cleave template DNA in the presence of Cas 9 nuclease. Students used a variety of online tools in the project design, and designed their own timelines to achieving their goals. We discuss preliminary results as well as further work required to achieve this workflow in a single 14-week semester.

Benefits of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience in an Introductory Biology Laboratory Course and other STEM Courses

Frank R. Castelli, Mark A. Sarvary, and Mitra Asgari; Cornell University

Undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) are known to provide benefits to the students they teach, but there have been few studies examining how UTAs themselves benefit from the experience and how the graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) that they assist benefit. We have developed and are continually improving a teaching assistant program for undergraduates in an inquiry-based introductory laboratory biology course that enrolls upwards of 400 students each semester. Each lab section of up to 18 students is led by a GTA laboratory instructor who is assisted by one UTA. UTAs also hold office hours. Our team of about 12 UTAs work closely with their GTA mentors and attend a weekly pedagogical training meeting. We will discuss the benefits and challenges of this UTA program from multiple perspectives, partly measured through UTA surveys, GTA surveys, and student evaluations given throughout the semester. We will also present some results of a related educational research project examining how the benefits of the UTA experience in biology courses, including ours, compares and contrasts with those in other STEM disciplines including chemistry, physics, and computer science.

Three Low Key, But High Impact, Teaching Techniques for Undergraduate Biology Labs

Lydia Chiasson, Mount Royal University

In this poster, I present three low key, but high impact, teaching techniques for undergraduate biology labs. I used paper cutouts, face paint and games to enhance student learning and engagement in Human Anatomy and Physiology labs. I used an interactive technique for blood typing, where students were given paper cutouts as a visual representation of ABO blood types that could be received and donated. My second technique used glow-in-the-dark face paint to help students understand the principles of epidemiology. By simulating a “glow-in-the-dark” virus, I demonstrated how viruses can be spread and lead to epidemics. For my third technique, students participated in a collaborative game to demonstrate flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Students moved throughout the lab as CSF, choroid plexuses (producing CSF) or arachnoid villi (absorb CSF). Although these techniques were applied in Human Anatomy and Physiology labs, their use can be expanded to a broad range of laboratories in science.

Assessment of Scientific Reasoning Skills Learned from Lab Modules with Varying Degrees of Inquiry

Aaron Coleman, University of California – San Diego

Scientific reasoning skills are best learned in laboratory classes, where students can engage in the scientific process. Recent calls for reform in biology undergraduate education have urged a change to more inquiry-based laboratory classes. It is logically assumed that students learn scientific reasoning better from inquiry-based classes, however there are few controlled studies that have examined this. Furthermore, the degree of inquiry used in published lab modules ranges considerably. In guided inquiry labs, the instructor provides the question and experimental methods, whereas in open inquiry labs the question and methods are determined by the students, although both are considered inquiry-based. The assessment of most published inquiry lab modules is uncontrolled or makes comparisons to labs with no inquiry. We have designed an assessment to measure scientific reasoning skills, and administered it to students before and after completion of our biochemistry lab course. Two versions of the main course module were rotated through the class in different terms, a low-inquiry version where instructor provided the experimental question and design, and a high-inquiry version where the students determined the hypothesis/question and designed the experiment. Preliminary results show statistically significant improvement in scientific reasoning skills for the high-inquiry module and no improvement for the low-inquiry module.

Educational Modules of Skeletal Muscle Anatomy and Function for Middle, High School and College Students with Models and Active Data Gathering

Robin L. Cooper, University of Kentucky

The Next Generation Science Standards emphasize the application of integrated STEM knowledge to explore potential solutions to real-world problems. The goal of this problem-based module is to develop learners content knowledge so they can build 2-D and 3-D models to explain a human health issue. Concepts addressed include skeletal muscle anatomy and physiology, the cellular physiology of the muscle cell and its relationship with the plasma membrane and whole tissue to explain muscle cell function and the disease. The module opens with a classmate that has recently been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and is seeking help from peers to learn about this disease. Learners work in teams through a series of hands-on, modeling activities and literature reviews to develop an understanding of skeletal muscle anatomy and physiology. They also use 3D software programs to conduct force measures of skeletal muscles. Subsequent engineering design activities challenge teams to build 2D and 3D models with readily available materials to explain the physiology of the disease. Team presentations incorporate the testing and feedback needed to modify models to provide the best tools for explaining the disease.

Understanding How the Nephron Concentrates Urea in Urine: An Experimental Approach Using Dialysis Bags

Lisa Danish, Nazareth College

Understanding how the nephrons of the kidney concentrate urea in urine is a particularly challenging concept for students of organismal biology/anatomy. I developed a laboratory exercise using dialysis bags to replicate the progression of filtrate through the nephron. Dialysis bags are permeable to small molecules like water and salt, but not sugar. Since the descending Loop of Henle and part of the collection duct are permeable to water, but not salt, I replaced sugar with salt for this part of the simulation. Students start with a dialysis bag of known volume and concentration of solute (10mL, 10% sugar) placed in 50% sugar water simulating the descending Loop of Henle. The new volume and concentration is determined, and a new dialysis bag of the same volume and concentration of solute (salt) is placed in a beaker of 100% water simulate the ascending Loop of Henle. The volume is assumed to not change and salt concentration is determined using a salinity probe. The final bag then is of the same volume and solute concentration (sugar) and placed in 50% sugar water to simulate the collection duct. Students track the concentration of salt and urea (hypothetical) and water volume through the experiment.

CUREing Exposure to Environmental Chemicals from Personal Care Products

Erika Doctor, Cassandra S. Korte; Lynn University

Exposure to compounds found in personal care products, such as phthalates, is common and an emerging public health concern. We began implementation of an intervention-based project focused on reducing exposure to potentially harmful chemicals contained in these products embedding in an Organic Chemistry II course for biology majors. This course-based undergraduate research experience consists of a semester-long module of laboratory exercises focused on development of analytical methods to assess exposure to environmental chemicals. Students begin by performing cookbook-style laboratory exercises focused on the development of laboratory skills. They then propose methods of analysis for human urine samples based on the faculty-designed intervention study in which participants abstained from product use. Students continue by analyzing urine samples collected from the intervention study. In completing this set of modules, students gained hands-on analytical research experience and have opportunity to design future interventions. Student learning was assessed by rubrics for proposals and lab reports, and pre-, mid-, and post-CURE content exams; while students’ scientific attitudes (self-efficacy, project ownership, science identity, networking, and community values) were assessed using the PITs survey at the beginning and end of the CURE.

Characterization of Student and Instructor Behaviors in CURE and Non-CURE Learning Environments: Implications for Non-Cognitive Student Outcomes

David Esparza, Amy E. Wagler, Jeffrey T. Olimpo; The University of Texas – El Paso

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) serve to increase student access to authentic scientific opportunities. Current evidence within the literature indicates that engagement in CUREs promotes students’ science identity development, affect, and ability to “think like a scientist.” Despite the importance of these findings, few studies have examined the behaviors and interactions occurring within CURE and non-CURE settings and the impact of those behaviors on said student outcomes. To address these concerns, we conducted a mixed methods study to explore student and instructor behaviors in four CURE and four non-CURE introductory biology laboratory sections. Representative video data were collected in each section and coded using the Laboratory Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM. In addition, pre-/post-semester affective survey data were obtained from CURE (n = 47) and non-CURE (n = 64) participants. Results indicated that CURE students and instructors engaged in more interactive behaviors (e.g., one-on-one dialogue; questioning) than their non-CURE counterparts (p ≤ 0.005 for all analyses), a finding confirmed by analyzing behavioral patterns via construction of partial correlation networks. Multiple regression analyses further revealed that student/instructor interactive behaviors and enrollment in a CURE were strong predictors of pre-/post-semester shifts in student motivation, science identity development, discovery-based learning, and collaboration.

Smelling Good Enough to Kill! Plant Essential Oils and their Insecticidal Activity

Fardad Firooznia, Maryam Said, Gavin Balkaran, Jhunior Morillo; City College of New York

Smelling good enough to kill! Plant essential oils and their insecticidal activity.

Bean beetles, in the genus Callosobruchus, are agricultural pests in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia. Organophosphate insecticides such as malaoxon have been used to control insect pests such as bean beetles. There is increased interest in using natural insecticides to replace chemicals such as malaoxon because of increasing levels of insecticide resistance in different insect pests as well as concerns about the effects of these chemicals on human health and unintended effects on non-target organisms. Essential oils from aromatic plant species contain varying combinations of different compounds. Due to their different compositions, essential oils from some plant species may act as more potent insecticides than essential oils from other plant species. In this lab exercise, students study the effectiveness of essential oils from different aromatic plants as natural insecticides against the bean beetle Callosobruchus maculatus. In the process, the students carry out a literature search, design and carry out the experiment, analyze their data, and present their findings. Given the paucity of published data on the insecticidal effects of plant essential oils on bean beetles, the research carried by the students generates novel data.

Exploring the Biodiversity, Geology, and Cultural Heritage of the High Plains: An Interdisciplinary Experiential Learning Experience for Honors Students Sponsored by the Partners in the Parks Program

William Glider, Leilani Arthurs, Jon Garbisch; University of Nebraska – Lincoln

Partners in the Parks (PITP) is an outdoor experiential learning program coordinated by the National Collegiate Honors Council. PITP projects involve a partnership with any entity operated by the National Parks Service. These experiential excursions offer unique opportunities for collegiate honors students and faculty to visit areas of the American landscape noted for their beauty, significance and lasting value. Seven honors students from colleges, and universities around the nation participated in this one week excursion in June 2018. The following sites managed by the National Parks Service were visited: Niobrara Scenic River, Badlands National Park, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, Wind Cave National Park and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. Students used photography and journaling to document their learning experience. The western High Plains is a unique region of mixed-grass, tall-grass, and sand hills prairie where six major ecosystems converge due to unique geology and geography, giving the region the name “biological crossroads.” Faculty and park personnel provided on-site informal discussions and informational sessions which included historical, scientific, cultural, and other important areas unique to a given park. This project also provided the participants an excellent opportunity for students to learn about the cultural heritage of Lakota Indians (a first nation of North America) and how this heritage was influenced by the natural history and geology of the region as well as US governmental policies. An afternoon was spent at the Oglala Lakota College where faculty and staff served the students a traditional Lakota meal and gave short presentations on diverse topics such as medicinal plants used by the Lakota and a research project on growing mushrooms as a cash crop. The excursion also took advantage of exciting recreational opportunities in the parks to broaden participant’s understanding of the overall value of national parks to our country and its citizens. This included hiking in the Badlands, participation in the Wild Cave Tour at Wind Cave and kayaking the Niobrara River.

Beyond Dissection: Modifying a Traditional Crayfish Dissection Lab to Teach Hypothesis Testing, Data Analysis, and Scientific Writing

Jessica Goldstein, Barnard College

Our majors-level introductory biology class includes animal dissections in which students examine anatomical structures to help relate form and function. We wanted to expand the student’s learning experience to include hypothesis testing and data analysis. To do this, we modified a traditional crayfish dissection lab to include information about organism variability and introduce statistical methods to describe and compare this variability. We chose to focus on front claw size, a sexually dimorphic trait in many decapods. This poster will describe how we gave students information from the scientific literature about the function and size of decapod claws in relation to sex. We asked students to interpret this data and form hypotheses about what they might find in their crayfish samples. Students then collected quantitative data from their specimens and statistically analyzed their data to determine if their hypotheses were supported. Students wrote a formal results and discussion section based on this experiment to help them learn principles of scientific writing and to assess understanding of the data analysis activity.

Infusing Critical Conversations about Cultural Awareness, Identity, and Mental Health into a Research-Intensive Program for Hispanic/Latinx Undergraduates in STEM

Aimee Hernandez,  Karina C. Canaba,  Laura A. Diaz-Martinez,  Jeffrey T. Olimpo; The University of Texas – El Paso

Growing concern exists about the prevalence of mental illness in graduate education, which has been associated with a lack of mentorship from graduate students’ advisors combined with significant levels of fiscal and emotional stress commonly associated with the pursuit of a graduate degree. This prevalence is often further exacerbated in minoritized graduate student populations due to the constructs of racism, sexism, and microaggressions in academic contexts. In response to this concern, we offered a four-part Critical Conversations workshop aimed at undergraduate students (n = 17) in the ACSScellence program at our institution, a research-intensive experience designed to prepare Hispanic/Latinx students for graduate studies in STEM. Specifically, through an interactive journal club, we discussed the importance of: (1) cultural awareness; (2) the advisor selection process; (3) identity-constructs and mental health; and (4) how to deal with microaggressions in academia. Data obtained from student responses to one-minute paper prompts and open-ended questionnaires were used to evaluate the impact of the intervention. Content analyses indicated that students (76% or more per category) developed an increased awareness of what constitutes a healthy mentoring relationship, strategies to maintain work-life balance in research positions, and socio-cultural competence as a result of participating in the workshop.

Health Disparities in the Border Region: A Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) with Concomitant Civic Engagement Education

Aimee Hernandez, Jeffrey T. Olimpo; The University of Texas – El Paso

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) seek to engage students in the authentic process of scientific discovery. Current evidence in the literature suggests that participation in CUREs results in significant increases in students’ development of scientific reasoning skills and experimental design abilities. While these outcomes are noteworthy, relatively few studies have examined and assessed potential mechanisms for connecting student-initiated research endeavors within CURE contexts to the broader community. In order to address these concerns, we conducted a quasi-experimental, mixed methods study to evaluate the impact of a civic engagement-infused “Health Disparities in the Border Region” CURE on students’ (n = 17) development of public outreach skills, researcher self-efficacy, and understanding of research-community connections. Results indicated a significant, pre-/post-semester increase in students’ ability to identify and describe the relationship between components of a public health outreach plan (p ≤ 0.039 for all analyses), as measured via the Public Health Outreach Flowchart assessment. Analysis of student responses to the Persistence in the Sciences (PITS) questionnaire further revealed a positive, pre-/post-semester shift in participants’ researcher self-efficacy (p = 0.004), with students (68.8%) noting the importance of their research in engaging the public around relevant healthcare issues within the community.

Engaging Students in Experiential Learning: Texas Integrated Diving and Ecological Studies (TIDES) Laboratory

Stephanie Lockwood, Texas Tech University

The Texas Integrated Diving and Ecological Studies (TIDES) laboratory is a collegiate multi-institutional, international research program designed to engage students through experiential learning, where students develop novel marine projects. Students receive lectures on various oceanography and marine biology topics. Students review coral reef research literature, write proposals, develop materials and methods and then execute their research on the Mesoamerican Coral Reef on the island of Roatán, Honduras. In conjunction with traditional coursework, students become open water dive certified. At the end of the semester, we travel to Honduras, where students execute their proposed research. Most days, we have two research dives with evenings dedicated to data entry. Students attend lectures by the Roatán Institute for Marine Science educator on dolphins and sea turtles, after which students dive with dolphins. Upon return, students analyze their data and develop research posters, which many present at various research conferences throughout the year. An impressive number of our TIDES students have won top awards at a variety of research conferences, and this year, our first manuscript was published. As many universities and colleges are developing 2+2 relationships with community colleges, this program could serve as a model for other multi-institutional undergraduate research programs.

Using Case Histories to Teach Parasitology Labs

Tammy McMullan, Simon Fraser University

BISC318 Parasitology has 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of lab per week. In 2018 Case Histories were added to the lab. The only change in the delivery of the course was the addition of the Case Histories and format of the lab exams (specimens, lab handout, lab introductory talk, teaching staff were the same). The Case Histories format was: the patient travelled here, did this activity, ate this, became ill, the doctor performed tests, here are the results. After the students examined the specimens, each group was given a randomly assigned Case History to work on (without the use of their notes/internet) and then discussed their answers with an instructor. Each group did four Case Histories per week. The lab exams consisted of ten new Case Histories. The anonymous student survey, after the lab midterm exam and before the students saw their graded exams, revealed that the students preferred the Case History format (92.7%), thought the difficulty was the same or harder, and demonstrated their knowledge better. The 2018 class did as well or better in 9 of 11 types of questions on the exam and had the highest overall class average for the lab component.

The Use of C-Ferns to Study Plasmolysis and Stomata Number

Kathleen A. Nolan, Jia Ci Deng, Jill E. Callahan, Brandy Garrett-Kluthe; St. Francis College

Ceratopteris richardii (C-ferns) have been used to routinely study genetic crosses in our genetics laboratory courses. The hermaphrodites produce a heart-shaped flat, single-cell layer gametophyte and the males produce a club-shaped structure. When a concentrated sucrose solution (10%) is added to these structures, plasmolysis can be observed in a matter of minutes. Since these plant forms are only a single-cell layer thick, they offer a clear, actually easier to view, model to observe and study plasmolysis in plants than the traditionally used Elodea leaves, which are two-cell layers thick. Even the next generation of C-ferns, the sporophyte, is one-cell layer thick. These sporophytes make a rosette type clump, but “leaves” can be easily plucked from the multi-leaved structure and make a neat flat sheet on a microscope slide on which plasmolysis (and/or turgor) can be observed. An additional mutant, the polka dot, “naturally” has clusters of chloroplasts in the center of the cell, so adding concentrated solutions does not affect the phenotype. Stomata are also easily observed in these plants. Students can test hypotheses about various conditions that would affect the number of open and closed stomata, for an expanded use of C-ferns in undergraduate laboratory projects.

Photomorphogenesis of Plants

Kathleen Nolan, Jia Ci Deng, Victoria Habbchy, Ameer Rum; St. Francis College

Students can test the growth of a variety of plants using various wavelengths of light. Norman Lamps sells inexpensive colored LED bulbs that emit the following wavelengths in nm: green (550), purple (443), pink (632), orange (560), amber (572), red (680) and blue (470). We tested growth in height, number of leaves, leaf area (using Image J), and dry and wet weight of lima bean plants grown under purple, amber, blue, and pink lights. Initial experiments have revealed that plants grow well when placed under the following lights: (6 plants under each wavelength) pink (632 nm), 
purple (443 nm), blue (470 nm) and amber (560 nm). Plants grown under purple and amber lights had the greatest number of leaves (39 and 32 respectively versus 9 for the blue and 18 for the pink wavelengths). However, even though plants grown in blue and pink light produced less leaves, they had the same average height (25.5 cm. for the blue) or greater (30 cm for the pink), which might indicate that the plants grown under those wavelengths allocate growth resources to height rather than leaf number. In the future, we will add stem diameter in our measurements.

Developing Algebraic and Geometric Understanding of Stereology in Biological and Astronomy Contexts

Ann O’Neil, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

Next Generation Science Standards and college level STEM coursework emphasize the application of science, technology, engineering design and mathematics to create potential solutions for real-world problems. One such problem relevant to students in grades 6-12 and at the introductory college level is successfully deciphering structures they attempt to view with microscopes and telescopes. Such experiences can become a frustrating practice because of the limited knowledge of stereology. The goal of this module is to apply algebraic and geometric principles to elucidate stereology as it applies to making sense of 3D images and 2D images derived from the projection of 3D images. The module builds student understanding through a series of visual demonstrations using basic principles used in imaging of structures with short didactic presentations to scaffold learning. Students construct models to demonstrate stereology and explain it in the context of microscopic and telescopic images. Integrating algebra and geometry in relation to stereological phenomena is of importance in developing appreciation of mathematical application in scientific topics, a deeper understanding of scientific investigation, and more specifically in understanding the application of stereology in scientific imaging.

Examining the efficacy of peer feedback as part of the writing process in an introductory biology course

Laurie Pacarynuk, Jennifer Burke; University of Lethbridge

A goal of introductory biology labs is to introduce students to scientific writing by having them write lab reports. With several lab sections taught by different instructors, consistency in grading is a problem. Another challenge is that students do not appear to engage with instructor feedback; they see writing as subjective, or fail to use the feedback to improve. One approach to these problems is having students carry out peer assessment with the goals of: encouraging engagement in the process of writing, introducing students to the peer review process (fundamental to science), and addressing inconsistencies in grading. Students in Biology 1010 used Moodle Workshop to grade exemplar Introductions and Discussions. They then prepared and peer evaluated Introductions and Discussions. Students were surveyed (22% responding: 44/200). 45% of respondents disagreed with the statement: I feel that the peer-feedback that I received helped to improve my writing; however, 90% of these identified stress and/or the belief that they would have received higher marks from their instructors as the reason(s) behind their negative evaluations. 86% agreed with the statement: I feel that engaging in the peer-feedback process helped to strengthen my critical reading skills. Overall, preliminary results support the use of peer feedback.

A Teaching Toolbox to Understanding Urban Wetlands

Susan Purdy, Thompson Rivers University

There are many good reasons to use locally-available urban wetlands to teach our students about important ecological processes as well as to expose them to real world issues. Wetlands are an extremely valuable ecosystem, housing extensive biodiversity, and also particularly in urban areas, important nutrient sinks. This ‘teaching toolbox’ takes our non-majors environmental biology students through a series of labs. We start with a SimBio virtual reality lab on nutrient pollution in aquatic ecosystems, next they perform an in-lab experiment on the effects of the addition of nutrients on algal growth, and then finally out to the wetlands for extensive abiotic and biotic sampling and analysis. The poster will share more details about the labs, as well as the results from this on-going wetland study. Through a partnership with the City of Kamloops Nature Parks department, the data collected by our students is extremely valuable. These ‘non-science’ students make surprisingly good scientists.

CRISPR-Cas9 in the Undergraduate Lab: a Short Implementation

Maria S. Santisteban, University of North Carolina – Pembroke

The popularity of CRISPR-Cas, amplified by news reports and social media centered on the potential of gene editing for human health, has gotten students interested in this “phenomenon”. Instructors can use this opportunity to introduce CRISPR-Cas in the undergraduate laboratory. CRISR-Cas lends itself to being adapted to Classroom Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). Often, these are semester or year-long courses, where students are guided through much of the whole process. We sought to determine if even a shorter implementation in a 5-week Molecular Biology summer course would provide students with a good understanding of the technology, its methods and applications, while allowing them to fail and improve. The course was developed shortly after attending the CRISPR-Cas pre-ABLE 2018 workshop.  All students in the class designed sgRNAs for the same D. rerio gene. Each group of 2 was then assigned the synthesis and in vitro validation of one guide. Remarkably, all students were able to successfully create functional guides. Students wrote a lab report to summarize their work and filled a survey to gauge their gains. This experience demonstrates that even with a limited scientific scope and a small budget ($700), it is possible to have a successful implementation of CRISPR-Cas.

Engaging the Public in the Scientific Conversation: Methods to Improve How We Teach Science Communication in Biology Laboratory Education

Mark Sarvary, Kathleen Gifford; Cornell University

Inquiry-based laboratory courses teach every step of the scientific process, including communicating scientific discoveries. While courses often focus on scientific writing and poster presentations, they fail to teach science communication: methods to engage non-technical audiences. Sharing scientific discoveries with the public is no longer solely the job of professional communicators, rather a skill that all scholars should have. Especially in biology, where recent curriculum reform spearheaded by scientific societies embraced student-centered course design using real-life examples. In the Investigative Biology Teaching Laboratories at Cornell we faced this dilemma: how can an already busy laboratory course add this additional learning goal and teach this important skill. Our goal was to develop methods to train the next generation of science communicators. We took two approaches: a) created a learning environment called “Bioimagination lab” providing tools for multimodal communication going beyond writing; b) worked with community partners tapping into their expertise to provide service-learning opportunities to our students. Encouraging the next generation of scholars to become effective science communicators has to start at the beginning of the students’ scientific career. Students start to learn how to translate dense scientific language into simpler concepts for lay audiences and become well-rounded biologists during this process.

Engineering Analysis of Design of Mammalian and Avian Femurs

Joan Sharp, Simon Fraser University

Natural selection can change structures over time by differential survival and reproduction of individuals with heritable phenotypic variation, increasing adaptation of organisms to their environment. We can seek insight into organismal structures by applying engineering principles of good design, by (1) identifying the purpose of the structure, (2) determining the physical constraints acting on it, and (3) calculating costs and benefits if the structure was changed. Mammalian and avian femurs are hollow tubes, not solid rods. A tube is an excellent shape for a structure that must resist bending and breaking, yet be as light as possible. A tube is stronger than a solid rod of the same mass. A tubular bone of external diameter d has an internal cavity with internal diameter kd. The factor k is 0, if a bone is solid, or close to 1, if a bone is very thin-walled. Note that avian or mammalian bones do not actually range across these k-values. The mass per unit length of a series of bones of identical strength but differing values of k can be calculated. Students determine whether k values of various avian and mammalian femurs are optimized to minimize mass for femurs of a given strength.

STEM & Health: Stressors on the Circulatory System

Catherine Stanley, University of Kentucky

The goal of these problem-based modules is to explore the effects of health-related issues (e.g., obesity, arteriosclerosis) on pressures in the circulatory system. Modeling and engineering design are key practices comprising the Next Generation Science Standards making these modules timely and very suited for life science classrooms at the middle, secondary, and introductory college levels. These STEM modules bridge biology, physics, and health concepts for an integrative approach to learning fluid dynamics and physiology in authentic situations. Physiological issues represented include: (1) plaque formation and effect on flow, (2) elastic recoil and arteriosclerosis, (3) effects of blood viscosity, and (4) differential blood pressure related to resistance. Exercises guide learners in assembling human circulatory system models used to explore the physics of pressures related to tubing, flow, and resistance. Findings from the investigations are used to construct diagnoses and recommended treatments for patient in problem scenarios. The modules also emphasize the importance of a healthy lifestyle.

The Wild Yeasts Biodiversity Project

Sarah Stockwell, University of California – San Diego

We describe the Wild Yeasts Biodiversity Project, an inquiry-based module developed for a biology lab class at the University of California, San Diego. Over the course of this 10-week project, students work to isolate strains of wild yeast from the chaparral at a local nature reserve. On the initial collecting trip, students explore the habitat and choose their own samples, which increases the variety of samples and also students’ ownership of their data. After several weeks of culturing and observing their strains, students extract genomic DNA and genetically barcode their strains to identify them. All yeast strains are preserved for future study, building a living archive of microbial biodiversity at the nature reserve that also serves to document changes over time in this ecologically sensitive habitat. The class pools their data and students work in pairs to look for patterns; students write and present a short proposal for further research to test the pattern they found. The protocols are derived from the Hittinger lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison but have been substantially expanded into a 50-page lab manual that guides students through collecting, culturing, phenotyping, isolating, freezing, DNA barcoding, and identifying their wild yeast strains.

Stonefly Larvae Push-ups: a Behavioral Ecology Lab Exercise

Brian Swisher, Saint Michael’s College

The behavioral response of stonefly larvae to the physiological stress of low dissolved oxygen is easy to quantify in the laboratory and lends itself to connections to water quality, animal morphology and physiology, and behavioral traits of animals. Designed for a 2 to 3 hour laboratory for animal behavior, this lab experiment can be conducted with minimal equipment and generates statistically significant results with relatively low number of replicates. The fairly widespread availability of larval stoneflies of the Family Perlidae makes this lab possible wherever there are streams with good to excellent water quality. By using the available literature on the use of aquatic invertebrates to monitor water quality, students can connect a conspicuous and engaging animal behavior to ecological methods used widely around the world.

The Close-Call in Microbiology Labs – Understanding Microbes

Seema Thomas, Maryah Glover, Anutthaman Parthasarathy, Andre’ O. Hudson; Rochester Institute of Technology

For a sophomore student, new to microbiology lab, most of the microbial colonies look alike – kind of a toddlers view on a dog or a cat; both have 4 legs and a tail, and now what?! The students level of confidence increases within a few weeks as they learn to identify the morphology – the form, the elevation, the margin and the list goes on, followed by the same protocol of testing antimicrobial susceptibility using antibiotic discs and measuring the zone of inhibition with a ruler. My question: Why not include a more relevant approach to learn techniques which demonstrates that the same microbe responds differently based on the form in which they exist; planktonic or biofilm – either relating to clinical biomaterials like stents in human body and its antibiotic treatments or biofilms in Lake Ontario water supply channels and chlorine/disinfectant treatment as related to the environment. This will enhance their learning on current real world applications, as in medical, scientific or pharmaceutical settings. This paper discusses a study based on determining the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration and Minimum Biofilm Eradication Concentration using Citrobacter freundii and Aeromonas hydrophila as model organisms, utilizing cost effective 96 wells plates.

Connecting Genotypes and Phenotypes using Transformed Bacteria in a Wet-Lab Setting

Brooke Trabona Mindy Brooks, Louisiana State University

Due to being taught separately, a major difficulty in introductory biology courses is making the connection between Mendelian genetics and molecular biology. To help students better understand and integrate these concepts, Louisiana State University offer hands-on inquiry-based lab exercises. Freshman biology students first plate Escherichia coli strains (A, B, and C) that were transformed by three different plasmids and expose them each to three treatments: the antibiotics tetracycline and ampicillin and ultra-violet light. At the second meeting, students perform gel electrophoresis with the three plasmids (1, 2, and 3) used to transform the bacteria and analyze bacterial growth after 24 hours of incubation. By understanding the role of restriction enzymes and how to analyze plasmid maps, students are tasked with identifying plasmids 1, 2, and 3 by interpreting the gel fragment patterns. Students are then challenged to draw connections between the plasmid genotypes and the resulting bacterial phenotypes using a student guide to piece together which plasmids transformed the bacteria. Come by our poster to learn more about how to draw better connections between these two topics using wet labs and a student guide.

An Introductory Biology Syllabus for Transformative Learning

Mark E. Walvoord, University of Central Oklahoma

The course syllabus can be an important document, in both lecture and lab, to build expectations for student learning and success, set the tone for the semester, and itself enhance student learning. This became increasingly important to me as I sought to update my introductory, non-majors, online biology course goals to include not just biology content knowledge, but broader goals of expanding students’ perspectives about themselves, their community, and their environment. These perspective shifts in students can be categorized as “Transformative Learning,” an adult learning theory first described in the late 1970s. More specifically, I wanted to use the framework of Transformative Learning to structure my course by applying the ideas of: Transformative Experiences (Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science model), Mezirowian Transformative Learning theory, Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning, Brookfield’s Critical Reflection theory, and the University of Central Oklahoma’s Student Transformative Learning Record (STLR) assessment rubric. To begin this course update, I modified my syllabus, annotating it to describe the theoretical underpinnings and reasons behind each course activity and student learning outcome. My poster displays an introduction to Transformative Learning theory and the ideas listed above, along with the annotated syllabus.

Examining Wax Chemistry through Encaustics

Susan Wright, University of Pittsburgh – Bradford

Chemically, waxes are composed of mixtures of esters in that the acyl and alkyl groups are non-branched and usually have a dozen or more carbon chains. Waxes have been used since 100 AD to create encaustic paintings, also known as hot wax paintings. During this exercise, properties of waxes will be explored and through this process, the student will be able to create their own, unique art piece. This lab is well suited for an introductory chemistry course; thus, students would require a high school understanding of chemistry. Students will coat a glass jar in gesso and paint the container with colored hot waxes. This activity takes 1 hr and can be completed individually. The exercise allows students to learn the chemistry of waxes, while simultaneously handling and designing a unique piece of art which they can take home. In this workshop, there will be a short presentation regarding the overall exercise and then participants will have the opportunity to complete part of the lab exercise.