Students are often intrigued by biodiversity. However, students can be intimidated by survey courses that require
memorizing synapomorphies with little context, and associated survey labs often provide few opportunities to
develop skills used to identify unknown organisms. Herein, students receive ?unknown? blue-green algae, and
practice skills to identify/name new species. This laboratory can be run with algae collected locally, or it can be a
collaboration on a CURE with John Carroll University faculty. Students refine their statements of sample identity
while developing four skills: Skill 1, illustrate an unknown specimen of cyanobacteria; Skill 2, use a dichotomous
key to determine the family and genus to which the unknown likely belongs; Skill 3, perform a BLAST search on
GenBank to determine the genus and species that their unknown sample most closely resembles; and Skill 4,
examine the placement of unknown taxa on a phylogeny to make inferences about taxonomy and classification.
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