151 and 152 labs are designed to improve students’ abilities to think, work and write scientifically.*
To that end, we try to provide our students with real life, open-ended questions to investigate.
- The lab experiences are designed so that our students do what scientists do – seek answers to what is currently unknown.
- Students in our labs make initial observations, develop hypotheses, outline methods for examining these hypotheses, then conduct experiments to test them.
- As a result, students learn how to obtain and evaluate their own data, how to use simple statistical methods analyze data and compare results, and how to report their findings in scientific format.
- Thus, within the confines of a student laboratory, the labs are designed to give our students an authentic experience with science.
*For additional information on the design of the laboratory exercises and the physical laboratory space see Redesigning the Introductory Biology Laboratory Experience.