Instrumentation to Integrate Pattern and Process in Organismal Biology and Ecology

整合有机生物学和生态学模式和过程的仪器

• 批准号: 9851665
• 负责人: Kelvin Murray
• 金额: $ 4.59万
• 依托单位: Hope College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-06-15 至 2001-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9851665&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Instrumentation; Integrate; Pattern; Process; Organismal

Understanding connections between processes that occur at different levels of organization is one of the greatest challenges facing undergraduate students in biology. This project involves two mechanisms aimed at improving student understanding of such connections. First, the particular tools requested in this proposal, a portable photosynthesis system, a portable spectroradiometer, and a multi-channel metabolism system, will allow students in two of our large core biology courses to integrate patterns at the population or community scale with processes of energy production and use at the organismal scale. Second, students will develop hands-on skills while using the instruments in an open-ended fashion, first learning their operation while testing instructor-generated hypotheses, and then testing their own hypotheses to refine their understanding of the physiological bases of ecological patterns. Two proposed labs that specifically link organismal biology with ecology are "The Light Fantastic: Photosynthetic Characteristics of Forest Plants and Their Consequences for Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Plant Communities" and "Energetic Strategies of Ectotherms and Endotherms, and Their Ecological Consequences". The instrumentation requested here will also be used to improve the quantitative and analytical sophistication of process skills and concepts taught in several additional courses for majors, and in an integrated science/mathematics general education course for non-majors.

了解不同组织层面发生的过程之间的联系是生物学本科生面临的最大挑战之一。该项目涉及两种机制，旨在提高学生对这种联系的理解。首先，该提案中要求的特定工具，即便携式光合作用系统、便携式光谱辐射计和多通道代谢系统，将使我们两门大型核心生物学课程的学生能够将人口或社区规模的模式与生物规模的能源生产和使用过程相结合。其次，学生将在以开放式方式使用仪器的同时培养动手技能，首先在测试教师提出的假设的同时学习其操作，然后测试自己的假设以完善他们对生态模式的生理基础的理解。两个专门将有机生物学与生态学联系起来的拟议实验室是“神奇的光：森林植物的光合特征及其对植物群落时空动态的影响”和“变温动物和吸热动物的能量策略及其生态后果”。这里要求的仪器还将用于提高在几个额外的专业课程以及非专业的综合科学/数学通识教育课程中教授的过程技能和概念的定量和分析的复杂性。