This low budget Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURE) Course gives students the tools and opportunity to design, perform and present their own research experiment on factors affecting the physiology or phenology of beans, Phaseolus vulgaris L. over one semester of three-hour weekly labs. The course is Plant Biology, an elective class after two semesters of Majors Biology. Students discuss environmental factors that may affect the growth, seed production or photosynthesis such as temperature, light intensity, soil nutrition, heavy metal contamination, salinity etc. Then, the class divides into groups of 3-4 according to topic of interest, gets instructed on how to perform a literature search, and is reminded of what is needed for a research experiment. The whole class uses the same control plants, followed in turns by all groups. All that is needed except for the photosynthetic equipment is cheap: soil, pots, beans, rulers, and regular lab scales. Measuring photosynthesis is not strictly necessary. In all treatments height, number of leaves, color of the last fully expanded leaf, photosynthesis, fresh and dry masses, and pigment content are measured. The number of stomata may also be measured. Results are collected in pre-designed spreadsheets and uploaded during lab to the class Discussion board on Blackboard and become available to all. Students are lightly guided through collaborative data analysis. The semester ends with group research posters. Peer feedback is used to edit and later present at the College student research symposium and other venues. During this workshop participants will go through measurements with the tools and the spreadsheets students use. The most challenging part of this project is the balance between guidance and encouragement of independence.
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