M465/2013
Course overview
Labs: JH022 - Mondays and Wednesdays 8:00AM - 11:30AM
The labs for M465 are designed to familiarize you with how research investigation in environmental microbiology is designed, performed, analyzed, and communicated. Over the course of the semester, you will explore the diversity and function of environmental microbes and form hypotheses as to their impact in their community. Your job will be to think like microbiologists when designing and executing experiments to identify and characterize microbes from three distinct environments. Your instructor – indeed no one – will know ahead of time what you will find in the sample you will collect; therefore, the successful outcome of the project is in your hands. You will learn to work as a scientist, to perform the experiments properly, keep good records of your results, and to articulate the findings and conclusions from your work, both orally and in written reports. These are ambitious goals for any laboratory course. Since this course has few prerequisites, we expect that some of you will come into the course with extensive experience in microbiology and research investigation, while others have had little related experience or course work. Our goal is for everyone to end the course equally comfortable and facile with the tools and techniques of investigative environmental microbiology.
""Course organization:"" The course has 4 parts: (1) Thinking time: designing your experiment and reading existing literature (2) Field work: sampling the microbial community (3) Laboratory work: identifying the bacteria using classic methodologies and 16S rRNA gene sequencing (4) Communicating your results: data analysis and presentations
Student Directives
• Please familiarize yourself in advance with the exercise(s) to be performed. Before coming to lab each week, read the exercise and any accompanying technical material carefully. In your lab notebook, outline or create a flow chart of any experimental procedures to be performed, leaving sufficient blank space for rethinking or reworking. These flow charts will be checked before the start of lab and are worth 10% of your total grade.
• Your instructor will give preliminary instructions and/or demonstrations at the beginning of each lab. Do not attempt to start work before receiving instructions. Please make sure that you understand the purpose and execution of each part of the investigation and ask any clarifying questions before getting to work.
• Accurate and detailed descriptions of your investigation and your results are to be recorded in a lab notebook.
As always, please be aware of the IU student code of ethics and responsibilities found here: http://www.iu.edu/~code/
Assignments
Please check the calendar for due dates. Make sure you understand the policy on late assignments and makeups. (1) Lab notebook flow charts (10% total grade) (2) Proposal (20%): At the end of “thinking time” you and your group will generate a proposal for your project to be submitted to your instructor. This draft will be perfected with the help of your instructor and group and a final proposal will be submitted. (3) Results summaries (30%): At the end of each of three distinct laboratory analyses you will write up short (one page) results summaries to submit to your instructors. Although you have worked in a group to generate these experiments and proposals, these results summaries should be your own work – not collaborative. For example, do not use a graph generated by your group member. (4) Final presentations (30%): At the end of the semester you will design and present a virtual poster highlighting your research and communicating your results to your classmates. (5) Participation/Attendance (10%): Includes short assignments (such as the dilution series assignment) as well as coming in to the laboratory prepared and ready to work.
Policy on Late Assignments and Lab Make-ups
Make up of laboratory work in another lab section is not possible, given the nature of lab work. All late assignments, whether or not excused, must be submitted within a week. All late work is subject to a penalty of 5% per day late and is not accepted for point credit after one week.
Recent updates to the course
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