Life Sciences Commons^™

How To Spark Bio Curiosity: An Innovative High School Biology Curriculum, Audrie Charles

Graduate Research Showcase

This project is a researched creative endeavor focused around the creation of an exemplary high school biology course. This presentation will showcase an original high school biology curriculum designed to ignite students’ innate curiosity and empower meaningful learning of core concepts like cell structure, genetics, evolution and ecology. Students revisit key ideas through a spiral curriculum that builds complexity, tackling open-ended problems and collaborating on hands-on inquiries like formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting data and drawing evidence-based conclusions. Tangible projects allow students to demonstrate content knowledge in addition to critical thinking abilities like synthesizing concepts, evaluating claims and applying learning …

Plant Maze, Admin Stem For Success

STEM for Success Showcase

Students plant bean sprouts to observe their growth.

The Science Of Baking Bread, Admin Stem For Success

STEM for Success Showcase

Activity plan to teach biology and chemistry using a lesson on the baking of bread.

Integrating Theatre And Biology: How Embodied Performance Can Enhance Empathy Among College Science Students, Annika C. Speer, Begona Echeverria

The STEAM Journal

In these field notes, we examine the integration of the arts into a 20-person honors biology seminar at UC Riverside “Beyond Science: Being Humane Amid Human Rights Crises.” We held a four-hour workshop to examine the ways in which performance and theatrical storytelling can enhance science learning. The workshop provided a unique avenue for exploring how human activities result in downward consequences including refugee displacement, one of the course objectives. In addition to the workshop, we conducted surveys and a focus group with the students to better understand their experience incorporating the arts into their science class. A key concept …

Students Arts Participation Increases Stem Motivation Via Self-Efficacy, Stephen M. Dahlem

The STEAM Journal

This work found that there exists a correlation between student motivation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and student participation in the arts during high school with self-efficacy being a mediator. STEM is an important component of student success from a broad, national, perspective, as well as from a domain-specific point of view. The results of this work may provide aid to teachers, parents, administrators, and even students seeking to find ways to increase student motivation and performance in the STEM subjects. Additionally, this work may be of interest to advocates of the arts. This quantitative correlational study was …

Chromatin Architecture: Mechanisms Of Gene Regulation, Logan O'Donnell

Honors Projects in Science and Technology

The rapid growth and division of cells as they proliferate and penetrate to surrounding tissues defines the collection of disease states known as cancer. Abnormal gene expression drives this uncontrollable replication of cells. In recent studies, aberrant HOX gene expression has been noted in a multitude of cancer types such as myeloid leukemia, prostate cancer, and breast cancer [1]. Within cancerous cells with aberrant HOX expression, late expressing HOX genes are suppressed while early expressing HOX genes are reactivated. HOX genes are significant in controlling early phases of organismal development such as cell cycle, cell movement, and gene expression. Likewise, …

Artful Nature And The Legacy Of Maria Sibylla Merian, Emily N. Roush, Shannon R. Zeltmann, Felicia M. Else, Kay Etheridge, Shannon Egan

Schmucker Art Catalogs

The exhibition Artful Nature and the Legacy of Maria Sibylla Merian celebrates the skills and influences of a remarkable woman from seventeenth-century Europe. Curated by Emily Roush ’21 and Shannon Zeltmann ’21 with the guidance of Professors Kay Etheridge (Biology) and Felicia Else (Art History), Emily and Shannon selected the prints, organized them into categories, and carried out research on them, much of which was relatively obscure and would have been challenging even for graduate students.

Maria Sibylla Merian lived and worked in a time of vibrant intersections of art and science in Europe. Her images of insects and plants …

Robert Koch, Creation, And The Specificity Of Germs, Alan L. Gillen, Douglas Oliver, Frank Sherwin

Alan L. Gillen

Microbiology is dominated by evolution today. Just look at any text, journal article, or the topics presented at professional scientific meetings. Darwin is dominant.

Microbiology is dominated by evolution today. Just look at any text, journal article, or the topics presented at professional scientific meetings. Darwin is dominant. Many argue that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Dobzhansky 1973). But it was not always this way. In fact, a review of the major founders of microbiology has shown that they were creationists.1 We would argue that a better idea thanevolution and one of much …

Full Issue: Volume 13, Number 1

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Complete .pdf file of Volume 13, Number 1 of The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences.

Full Issue: Volume 12, Number 2

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Molecular Fossils From Phytoplankton Reveal Secular Pco2 Trend Over The Phanerozoic, Caitlyn R. Witkowski, Johan W. H. Weijers, Brian S. Blais, Stefan Schouten, Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté

Science and Technology Department Faculty Journal Articles

Past changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (PCO2) have had a major impact on earth system dynamics; yet, reconstructing secular trends of past PCO2 remains a prevalent challenge in paleoclimate studies. The current long-term PCO2reconstructions rely largely on the compilation of many different proxies, often with discrepancies among proxies, particularly for periods older than 100 million years (Ma). Here, we reconstructed Phanerozoic PCO2 from a single proxy: the stable carbon isotopic fractionation associated with photosynthesis (Ɛp) that increases as PCO2 increases. This concept has been widely applied to alkenones, but here, we …

Breaking Out From Tradition: Redesign Of Large Physiology Lecture Increases Engagement, Inclusion, And Student Outcomes, Jordyn Dickey, John Redden, Kristen Kimball

Honors Scholar Theses

The human digestive system is a diverse network of cells, tissues, and organs that is regulated by intrinsic (e.g. nervous and endocrine systems) and extrinsic factors (e.g. secretions, pH, and the microbiome). Given the volume of content and the dense physiology involved, this system is difficult for instructors to teach and equally challenging for students to understand. This is especially true in our two-semester Human Anatomy and Physiology course for pre-health students at the University of Connecticut. In the Spring 2017 semester, we developed and implemented an active learning based approach when teaching the histology and regulation of gastric secretions …

Full Issue: Volume 11, Number 2

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Full Issue: Volume 12, Number 1

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

A Teachable Unit On Soft Corals With Instructional Method Variances, Emily Breech

Honors Projects

The soft coral Sinularia flexibilis contains an aqueous alcohol extract that has shown antineoplastic activity against lymphocytic leukemia (Weinheimer and Matson, 1977). It also has other biological properties that work as antimicrobials, anti-inflammatory agents, and cytotoxicity activities (Kamel and Slattery, 2005). There is much research on the effects of flow rate on growth and morphology (Khalesi, Beeftink, & Wijffels, 2007) and the effects of light-dependency on growth rate (Khalesi, Beeftink, & Wijffels, 2009). The purpose of this student project was to further research on S. flexibilis, as well as incorporate that research into evaluating the effects of lecture-based teaching …

Race Relations: A Dialogue Between Science And Theology On The Basis Of Race, Shanice Latham

Dialogue & Nexus

When the topic of race is breached the emotions expressed can range from extreme feelings of guilt to extreme feelings of anger. Why is a word that is, today, commonly associated with a person’s skin color and other physical characteristics responsible for such strong emotional reactions? Much of the violence, poverty, injustice, and hurt in the world has been and is caused by racial division. With the continued use of such an arbitrary system as race these issues will continue to persist and deteriorate. This paper will explore the origin, as well as scientific and theological perspectives of race and …

A Longitudinal Cline Characterizes The Genetic Structure Of Human Populations In The Tibetan Plateau, Choongwon Jeong, Benjamin M. Peter, Buddha Basnyat, Maniraj Neupane, Geoff Childs, Sienna Craig, John Novembre, Anna Di Rienzo

Dartmouth Scholarship

Indigenous populations of the Tibetan plateau have attracted much attention for their good performance at extreme high altitude. Most genetic studies of Tibetan adaptations have used genetic variation data at the genome scale, while genetic inferences about their de- mography and population structure are largely based on uniparental markers. To provide genome-wide information on population structure, we analyzed new and published data of 338 individuals from indigenous populations across the plateau in conjunction with world- wide genetic variation data. We found a clear signal of genetic stratification across the east- west axis within Tibetan samples. Samples from more eastern locations …

Full Issue: Volume 10, Number 2

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Full Issue: Volume 11, Number 1

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Optimization Of A Genomic Editing System Using Crispr/Cas9-Induced Site-Specific Gene Integration, Jillian L. Mccool Ms., Nick Hum, Gabriela G. Loots

STAR Program Research Presentations

The CRISPR-Cas system is an adaptive immune system found in bacteria which helps protect against the invasion of other microorganisms. This system induces double stranded breaks at precise genomic loci (1) in which repairs are initiated and insertions of a target are completed in the process. This mechanism can be used in eukaryotic cells in combination with sgRNAs (1) as a tool for genome editing. By using this CRISPR-Cas system, in addition to the “safe harbor locus,” ROSAβ26, the incorporation of a target gene into a site that is not susceptible to gene silencing effects can be achieved through few …

Ocean Acidification And Predator-Prey Relations: Correlating Disruption Of Predator Avoidance With Chemosensory Deficits, Alexandra Fw Sidun, William G. Wright

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

One of the most destructive effects of global climate change is the increased carbon sequestering and consequential acidification of our world’s oceans. The impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms are still relatively unknown, especially effects on behavioral ecology. Avoiding predation has emerged from recent behavioral ecology literature as a critical feature in the life history of a wide array of animal species; experiments on marine fishes suggest acidic water compromises their predator-avoidance abilities. Recent assays in our lab suggest predator-induced behavior is reduced by weakly acidic water. These experiments do not address the potential factor of generalized malaise caused …

Principles Of Biology, Robert Bear, David Rintoul, Bruce Snyder, Martha Smith-Caldas, Christopher Herren, Eva Horne

Open Access Textbooks

This textbook is designed specifically for Kansas State's Biology 198 Class. The course is taught using the studio approach and based on active learning. The studio manual contains all of the learning objectives for each class period and is the record of all student activities. Hence, this textbook is more of a reference tool while the studio manual is the learning tool.

The textbook was originally published and is also available to download at http://cnx.org/contents/db89c8f8-a27c-4685-ad2a-19d11a2a7e2e@24.1.It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license.

Full Issue: Volume 10, Number 1

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Full Issue: Volume 9, Number 2

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Effectiveness Of The Qar Reading Strategy On Science Reading, Courtney Anne Broser

MSU Graduate Theses

The Questions-Answer Relationship (QAR) is a reading strategy that guides student comprehension by allowing the student to demonstrate their ability to determine importance, make inferences, and monitor comprehension through questions. The study was conducted on high school students in physical science to determine if the implementation of the QAR would improve content area literacy knowledge and confidence from pre-test and post-test data. Pedagogies included modeling, collaboration, independent work, guided practice, direct instruction, and inquiry laboratories. Through the implementation of the QAR method, the researcher found that students that learned new reading strategies gained confidence and were more engaged in the …

Full Issue: Volume 9, Number 1

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Full Issue: Volume 8, Number 2

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Brain Geography Mini-Course: A Neuroscience Outreach Effort, Mark Albert

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The way we experience the world - how we go between sensing, thinking, and acting - is in some ways no more of a mystery than understanding how a computer works. Brains are quite complicated and we may never understand the details, but what we know in general can be very interesting. In this mini-course, we will learn how we think. When we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, remember, rehearse, fear something, understand or produce language, move our bodies...specific parts of the brain are used. Students will get a rough introduction to each part and how they interact. This will …

The Effect Of Shear Stress, Potassium, And Adenosine On Α-1 Adrenergic Vasoconstriction Of Rat Soleus Feed Arteries, Tanner J. Heckle

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

During exercise, sympathetic nerve activity increases, augmenting the release of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine (NE) at the arterial wall and into the blood. NE binds to arterial adrenergic receptors to cause vasoconstriction, yet arteries in contracting skeletal muscle dilate during exercise. Previous evidence from Ives et al. suggests that heat and acidosis may partially inhibit constriction resulting from α-1 adrenergic receptors (termed sympatholysis). Our lab has previously demonstrated that rat soleus feed arteries respond to sympathetic signaling solely by α-1 adrenoceptors. We hypothesized that increased levels of arterial wall shear stress, potassium, or adenosine also contribute to sympatholysis, thereby reducing sympathetic …

Full Issue: Volume 8, Number 1

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.