The focus of this course is to practice science. You will do this by engaging in the discovery process. While your laboratory instructor will be able to guide you through this process, ultimately what you get out of this will largely be a function of what you put into it. Your preparation prior to lab and attendance in lab are essential to your performance and the value you may gain from the course. Preparation consists of thoroughly thinking out and planning your experiments. This includes reading the laboratory exercise and any additional assigned readings. You must also be actively involved in the formation of hypotheses, writing out the steps to your methods and constructing tables to collect your data. This preplanning will increase the chance of a successful experiment and that your time in lab is used productively. Your laboratory notebook and this manual will serve as your major resources for preparation for laboratory as well as studying for quizzes and exams.
The exercises in this manual are designed to accomplish a number of goals:
1) To expose and engage you in the process of science. The process of science is an act of discovery. Sometimes, the process is an act of discovery to find the "what" and the "where" by exploring new environments or re-exploring environments already investigated. Other times the process discovers the "how" and the "why". This often involves using deductive methods to make predictions and carry out carefully designed and executed experiments.
2) To help you gain a deeper and clearer understanding of some major biological topics.
3) To increase your familiarity with some of the basic techniques and instrumentation used in the life sciences.
Performing the exercises in this manual will involve making observations and collecting data. Once an experiment is complete, the observations and data must be analyzed and interpreted. This analysis may entail the use of statistics to derive the full meaning of the results and allow you to draw conclusions about the results.
Many of the laboratory exercises contain questions that are designed to increase your understanding of the concepts. It is important you take time during laboratory period to discuss these questions with your lab partner and your instructor. Do not leave the laboratory without understanding the concepts or ideas discussed during lab. The manual is designed for you to answer the questions in your laboratory notebook. Your notebook should include the details needed to allow a complete understanding of the experiments you performed. The results of your experiment must be communicated. Communication of results and conclusions to fellow scientists is an integral part of science because if enables the advancement of knowledge. Writing and graphing your results in an understandable and concise manner facilitates clear communication.
This manual is still a work in progress. We encourage student comments and input. Please give your laboratory instructor any comments or suggestions that you have. Hopefully, this will allow us to improve the manual in future editions. We hope that you enjoy the course and that you learn as you conduct the various exercises.