Fundulus Melanophores: from Physiology to Cell Biology
Background color adaptation in poikilotherms is a great subject for investigative physiology course. The physiological color change is relatively fast and reversible. Moreover, the control mechanisms...

Full Record

A Cross-Curricular Molecular Genetics Lab in Embryology
In response to the need for additional interdisciplinary, research-based labs that facilitate student learning across the biology curriculum, a student research project was developed as collaboration ...

Full Record

A Practical Guide to the Use of Cellular Slime Molds for laboratory Exercises and Experiments
The cellular slime mold, Dictyostelium discoideum, is particularly well suited for laboratory instruction in a variety of areas, including cellular biology, developmental biology, biochemistry,...

Full Record

A Qualitative and Quantitative Approach to Investigating Cellular DNA Repair Mechanisms
Light and dark repair are two common cellular-DNA-repair mechanisms available in most cells. Wild type and mutant (dark-repair deficient) E. coli cells are exposed to UV light resulting in pyrimidin...

Full Record

A Question-based Project that Uses a MAP Kinase Western Blot to Examine the Role of Calcium in Sea Urchin Fertilization
Sea urchins are a well-established model system for studying fertilization and early development. Urchin gametes are also an excellent tool for teaching cell biology in the laboratory, allowing studen...

Full Record

A quick, simple, and accurate chemotaxis bioassay
This article describes a chemotaxis assay using the model organism Dictyostelium.

Full Record

A Scenario-Based Study of Root Tip Mitosis
This workshop presents a scenario-based method of introducing students to the cell cycle. In the scenario, students are presented with a crop that might be affected by a soil fungus that secretes a le...

Full Record

A Student-Built Cell Counting Chamber
It is easy for beginning students to determine the areas encompassed by the fields of view of the various objective lenses of a compound microscope. Such activities are done commonly at the start of...

Full Record

Active Transport in Insect Malpighian Tubules
The Malpighian tubules of insects are an excellent model for examining the properties of secretion in a transporting epithelium. In this exercise students expose tubules from cockroaches or crickets t...

Full Record

All Chlamy, All the Time
Chlamydomonas lends itself to a variety of long-term projects, ranging from a few weeks to years. Two areas of specific adaptability are the regeneration of flagella after deflagellation and th...

Full Record