M465/2016

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.

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 worksheet, before you begin your wet lab work, outline or create a flow chart of any experimental procedures to be performed, leaving sufficient blank space for rethinking or reworking. 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. 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 worksheets (10% total grade): Worksheets will be used during each meeting to record your laboratory work. These simple templates will keep track of the date, the objectives of that day, the reagents and equipment used, and any results. Target audience: future you and your instructors.

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(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. Target audience: your peers.

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(3) Presentation of the proposal (5%): As a group, you will present a short (10 min) presentation on your proposed project. Target audience: your peers.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.

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(4) Microbes in the news (5%): Various times during the semester we will ask you to connect your in lab experience to the real world. We will do this via our “microbes in the news” assignments. Find an article, written for the general public, that focuses on the topic at hand. Summarize it in 5 minutes or less for your classmates. Your classmates will have an opportunity to ask you questions about your news item, and all will receive participation credit for discussions and relevant questions. Target audience: your peers.

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(5) Results summaries (20%): At the end of each distinct laboratory analysis you will write up short (no more than four page) results summary to submit to your instructors. Although you have worked in a group to generate these data, these results summaries should be your own work – not collaborative. For example, do not use a graph generated by your group member. Target audience: your instructors.

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(6) Final papers (30%): At the end of the semester you will write a research paper on your proposed project. You will submit a draft of this paper and feedback will be provided before the final is due. Target audience: your instructors.

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(7) 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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