Teaching Neuroscience in the Laboratory

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Neurobiology is an emerging interdisciplinary study that attracts world-wide attention in popular media. There is genuine curiosity abroad to understand the dynamic linkage between one's brain and one's behavior that should be part of the education, of not only scientists, but the lay public. Yet the teaching of neurobiology, especially in a laboratory setting, has badly lagged the demand. In part, this is because of the lack of availability of "teacher friendly" instructional exercises as well as easy availability of ethically and environmentally acceptable experimental animals. This project addresses these problems by providing teachers of physiology, neuroscience, and introductory biology, at the college and the high school level, with a new curriculum of laboratory exercises in neuroscience. We are teaching teachers how to use these exercises in their own labs by: (1) conducting a series of summer workshops in our teaching laboratory at Cornell; (2) producing an instructional videotape of our teaching exercises, aimed at teachers; and (3) setting-up an electronic bulletin-board service that permits us to stay in close contact with any teacher who is using or wants to use our teaching modules in his/her own laboratory instruction. Our teaching labs are based on an integrated set of classroom-tested labs that use the crayfish as the experimental animal. The crayfish is ideal because it is very hardy and easy to dissect. In terms of laboratory logistics, it is cheap, commercial, and easy to maintain. Pedagogically, the crayfish is ideal because it permits the instructor to select from simple lab exercises dealing with fundamental cellular properties of neural tissue to intellectually stimulating and challenging exercises that deal with the integrative properties of neural networks, synaptic computations, and learning and memory. These teaching modules thus cover basic neuronal properties, such as the ionic basis of bioelectric potentials to synaptic transfusion to elementary forms of learning and synaptic plasticity. They take advantage of the fact of the unity of neural function, the neuronal computations that lead to behavioral change are similar, whether occurring in the brain of a crayfish or a college freshman. The crayfish is therefore a suitable replacement for vertebrate preparations, which are becoming controversial as laboratory subjects. This project not only provides teachers with a set of conceptually-rich yet technically simple lab exercises, but it provides direct instruction to relatively inexperienced teachers via a "see and do" methodology. The proposal has two parts. First, a hands-on workshop for laboratory instructors at Cornell. Second, and very importantly, an instructional videotape for instructors showing step-by-step how to make each preparation is being produced. The intended target of these exercises include liberal arts college and university teachers, but our experience tells us that high-school teachers are perfectly capable of learning and employing these labs in their classes, and the workshop provides opportunities for them, as well. In summary, this proposal seeks to disseminate a thoroughly tested set of laboratory teaching exercises, proven to be stimulating to undergraduate students in many settings, to any teacher who wants to bring neuroscience content into his/her laboratory.