7:30 – 8:45 am, Check-in
North Life Sciences Lobby, Light breakfast provided
8:20 am, Biosciences Center Auditorium
Opening Remarks, Introductions – Joe Newsome, host
8:50- 11:50 am, Major workshops:
Room 416: Dr. Lawrence Blumer, Dept. of Biology, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA
“Substrate size selection by bean beetles”
This workshop uses the well-developed bean beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus, model system to guide students in the development of an experiment that is an authentic scientific study. Bean beetle females lay their eggs on the surface of beans and the entire pre-adult life cycle occurs inside the host bean. Students design and conduct experiments to evaluate whether live female bean beetles discriminate between beans of different sizes within one bean species. We will also review the on-line resources available for lab studies with this model system and present a strategy for assessing student understanding of the scientific process.
Room 219: Dr. Robert Ketchum, Dept. of Biology, University of Delaware
“The origin of species”
This workshop focuses on the morphological characteristics of the great apes while incorporating several on-line molecular databases to form a combined character set for exploring the evolutionary history of humans and primates. This workshop includes cladogram construction while emphasizing inquiry-based instruction.
Room 420: Dr. Bill Glider, School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
“Locomotor responses of flesh fly larvae to light”
Using lighting of different colors participants will observe the phototropic or photophobic responses of flesh fly larvae. This workshop emphasizes hypothesis testing and inquiry-based lab construction. The lab exercise works for courses needing animal behavior, entomology, hypothesis-testing, and lab-report practice skill sets.
Room 324: Dr. Stephanie Mel and Dr. Mandy Butler, University of California San Diego
“RNAi in roundworms: knocking down a gene involved in C. elegans locomotion”
RNA interference (RNAi) is an RNA-based gene silencing mechanism in cells. Participants in this workshop will observe normal and RNAi treated worms; they will then purify and quantitate RNA from both types of worms, and use RTPCR to determine the success of the knockdown. Students in this lab see a direct connection between reduced levels of a mRNA and a phenotypic effect, while also learning several molecular biology techniques.
Noon – 1:20 pm, Lunch, Biosciences Center Auditorium
–Anca Segall, Chair SDSU Biology, Welcome
–Introduction to ABLE, Why we need each other: Dr. Larry Blumer, Professor of Biology, Moorehouse College, Atlanta, GA and President of ABLE
1:30 – 4:25 pm, Mini workshops: [abstracts]
1:30 – 2:25 pm, First session of Mini workshops
- Room 416: Brian Sato. Attack of the Killer Fungus – A Hypothesis Driven Lab Module
- Room 420: Liz Dinzdale. Microbes, metagenomes and Marine mammals: Educating the next generation of scientists to enter the genomic era
2:30 – 3:25 pm, Second Mini workshop session
- Room 420: Chris Armour. A simple frog experiment to demonstrate the cardiovascular applications of Ohm’s Law and the Starling equation
- Room 219: Paul Detwiler. Marine biology dissection, smart-phones as tools to increase student engagement
- Room 416: Lakshmi Chilukuri & L. Almazan. The Benefits of Obsessive Compulsive Organization in Running Large Lab Courses
3:30 – 4:25 pm, Last Mini workshop session
- Room 324: Aaron Coleman. Enzyme Purifications in Introductory Biology Labs: A Fast and Inexpensive LDH Purification that Highlights the Biology
- BioSci: Tara Luckau & Joe Newsome. A paper simulation of sexual selection: Let the mating begin