Acquisition of Updated Equipment for an Integrated Cell and Molecular Biology Laboratory

直到最近，高级生物学核心课程包括细胞化学、细胞生物学、遗传学和发育生物学四门独立的讲座课程，以及它们的相关实验室。这种实验室体验的策略在教师时间方面是昂贵的，在课程内容方面是多余的，并且没有为学生提供关于细胞、分子和发育生物学的综合性质的足够的观点。自那以后，该系将四个独立的(1学分)实验室改为综合的2学期(4学分)实验室序列。所有生物学专业的学生都注册了实验I：实验生物学，在那里他们学习基本的生物技术方法。然后，他们可以选择参加三个二级实验室中的一个，在那里他们使用在实验I中学到的技术在他们感兴趣的领域进行调查。生物科学部已经购买了设备和用品，以建立和升级现有的显微镜、计算和分光光度资源。因此，学生能够使用准确反映当代科学研究的设备获得实践实验室经验。在这些实验室开发的所有方案和试剂都可以分发给其他机构的同事。此外，作为第二学期专题的一部分，学生在为本课程建立的万维网网页上张贴他们的专题成果总结。鼓励学生像过去一样，通过个别研究人员实验室的暑期项目来深化他们的研究经验。

Until recently, the upper-level Biology core curriculum consisted of four separate lecture courses in Cell Chemistry, Cell Biology, Genetics, and Developmental Biology, along with their associated laboratories. This strategy for laboratory experience was expensive in terms of faculty time, was redundant in terms of course content, and did not provide students with an adequate view of the integrated nature of cellular, molecular, and developmental biology. The department has since replaced the four separate (1-credit) laboratories with an integrated 2-semester (4-credit) laboratory sequence. All Biology majors enroll in Lab I: Experimental Biology, where they learn basic biotechnological methods. They then have the choice of enrolling in one of three second-level labs where they use the techniques learned in Lab I to carry out investigations in an area of their interest. The Department of Biological Sciences has purchased equipment and supplies to establish and upgrade the microscopy, computing, and spectrophotometry resources available. As a result, students are able to get hands-on laboratory experience with equipment that accurately reflects present-day scientific investigation. All of the protocols and reagents developed in these labs are being made available for distribution to colleagues at other institutions. In addition, the students, as part of their second semester projects, post summaries of their project results on the World Wide Web page established for this course. Students are encouraged to further their research experiences, as they have in the past, through summer projects in individual investigator's laboratories.