Equipment for an Inquiry-Based, Quantitative Undergraduate Neurobiology Laboratory

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An undergraduate neurobiology laboratory i being upgraded to allow computer-based data acquisition and analysis, as well as allow students to perform intracellular recordings. These two improvements promote exploration of neurobiological concepts and techniques, and broaden the impact of the laboratory course by facilitating demonstrations by the students in the laboratory course to neurobiology students in the lecture-only class. Additionally, the exercises made possible with the requested equipment provide practice with problem-probing and persuasion skills, as the students will design experiments, collect data and prepare presentations of their results for their peers. The computer-based data acquisition and analysis system significantly improves the laboratory by permitting quantification of data, decreases the time to set up experiments, and allows students to focus on the concepts under investigation. In addition, this equipment facilitates student research projects. These laboratory improvements are initially impacting several groups of students: those in the laboratory course, those taking the lecture course without the laboratory, and students who wish to perform undergraduate research. It is hoped that this project will also improve undergraduate laboratory experiences for all biology majors at the University, as the techniques found to be successful are adopted by other instructors.