A Treasure Hunt Through Pond Scum

 

Marshall Darley

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2003, Volume 24

Abstract

Most of us were introduced to protist diversity by examining wet mounts of cultures or prepared slides of representative species. In the protist lab of our introductory biology labs for non-science majors at The University of Georgia, we cover algal diversity with an inquiry-based approach we feel is more interesting and fun while still introducing students to the wonders of algal diversity. Instead of having students examine a row of cultures or a series of prepared slides, they find and identify algae in a sample of pond water enriched with cultured algae. The activity below is the principal activity of seven activities in the two-hour protist lab. By the way, algae is plural, alga is singular.

Keywords:  pond, algae, protist

Louisiana State University (2002)