Many biology students often lack the skills and understanding of interpreting and presenting biological data.
We designed interactive exercises to provide students with opportunities to practice data analysis skills and
approaches to graphing in introductory and upper-level laboratories. All exercises were designed to fill a single
3-hour laboratory period, but individual components could be used as stand-alone activities in specific labs.
Students are guided through a variety of short exercises that focus on the mechanics of data organization, brief
analysis, and graph construction. Students work in small groups to tackle a unique dataset and prepare the
data to present as a graph. Workshop participants will have a chance to engage with approaches to graphing
using a variety of pre-collected data to explore the process students engage with. Throughout the workshop,
we will discuss and highlight common student misconceptions or points of struggle we have observed after our
implementations of these activities in a large enrollment (>1,000 student) majors introductory biology lab and
upper-level physiology lab. Workshop participants will leave the workshop with ready to go teaching materials
for graphing exercises at any level of undergraduate biology teaching.
Keywords: graphing, data analyses, visualizing data
University of Maryland (2024)
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