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Providing a research experience in a biochemistry lab course
Author(s) -
Johnson Warren V
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a16-c
Subject(s) - presentation (obstetrics) , curriculum , mathematics education , undergraduate research , medical education , psychology , chemistry , computer science , pedagogy , medicine , radiology
A way to introduce students to doing research in a laboratory course that meets once a week for three hours is described. An undergraduate curriculum has students learning about science but doing very little science. Many students pursue a science degree because they want to do science. Laboratory courses that require students to use principles learned in lecture courses to design experiments to “discover” something can be very motivational. Students in a one‐credit biochemistry lab course for undergraduate junior and senior science majors learned some foundational skills in the initial sessions and then were told to purify and characterize β‐galactosidase from an overnight culture of E. coli . This “research experience” necessitated students designing and executing purification of an enzyme, preparation of a purification table, running SDS‐PAGE, and determining K M , k cat , k i for IPTG, and the pH optimum. Students prepared a poster presentation of their work as the final exam. The instructor relates to the students as an advisor and helps students take charge of solving the problems encountered as they do this “research.” (Supported by NSF grant DUE‐9850654)