Undergraduate Biology and Chemistry Instrumentation for Freshman and Sophomore Laboratories

该项目的目标是对一所偏远的两年制学院的三个校区的一年级和二年级的生物和化学实验室进行现代化改造和改进，这所学院招收了大量的美洲原住民，其中许多是女性。纳入教学计划的新设备包括植物生长室、海洋水族箱和计算机接口生理学仪器。环境实验室提高了学校进行普通生物学实验室实验的能力，这些实验涉及植物竞争和动物新陈代谢。海水水族馆被用来让普通生物学的学生(他们中的大多数人对海洋完全不熟悉)接触到海洋无脊椎动物。这种计算机接口的生理学仪器极大地改善了二年级学生收集数据的机会，这些数据量化了动物对不同刺激的适应性反应。这种仪器的重要性在于，它在本科实验室教学中的使用提供了更有效的科学方法的教学，以了解环境。对研究人员如何使用科学方法的实际掌握对理科和非理科专业的学生都很重要，环境主题对这些听众来说特别感兴趣。接受资助的机构正在将NSF的奖励与从非联邦来源获得的同等金额相匹配。

The goal of this project is to modernize and improve freshman and sophomore biology and chemistry laboratories on the three campuses of a remote two-year college that enrolls large numbers of Native Americans, many of whom are female. The new equipment being incorporated into the teaching program includes plant growth chambers, marine aquaria and computer-interfaced physiology instrumentation. The environmental chambers enhance the school's ability to conduct General Biology laboratory experiments involving plant competition and animal metabolism. The salt-water aquaria are used to expose General Biology students (most of whom are completely unfamiliar with the ocean) to marine invertebrates. The computer-interfaced physiology instrumenta- tion vastly improves second-year students' opportunities to collect data that quantify the adaptive responses of animals to varying stimuli. The importance of this instrumentation is that its use in undergraduate laboratory instruction provides more effective teaching of scientific methods for understanding the environment. A practical grasp of how scientific methods are used by investigators is important for both science and non-science majors, and environmental topics hold a special interest for this audience. The grantee institution is matching the NSF award with an equal sum obtained from non-Federal sources.