Sophomore biology majors are literally putting their theories to the test in Introduction to Biological Research.
The yearlong class begins in the fall when students develop a hypothesis. During the spring, the students do the experiment, collect the data and analyze it.
“(The students) had to work with a faculty mentor, so they worked with them to develop a testable, doable hypothesis,” Assistant Professor of Biology Erin Morris said. “Testable meaning scientifically testable and doable meaning that they could feasibly collect data while at Baker during the school year.”
The students’ area of interest determined what biology faculty member he or she worked with.
Students working with Calvin Cink, professor of biology, are analyzing some kind of animal population. Some students are working with Charmaine Henry, associate professor of biology, to learn about regeneration or the ability of an organism to regrow a damaged tissue or organ. Darcy Russell, professor of biology, is mentoring students who are asking questions about bacteria and their resistance capabilities. Morris is helping students with projects asking how environmental factors affect plant growth.
The students choose the type of experiment they will perform, which is something sophomore Sean Webb thinks makes the project more relevant to the student.
“It gives you a little more drive to do it,” Webb said. “It’s not like a chore that someone else is asking you or making you do. You have a little input in it.”
Webb is working with Morris. His project involves cicadas and trying to synthesize the gene sequence of their period gene, which is something, according to Webb and Morris, no one has done before. The entire project is based off of trial and error, and this makes it difficult to get results.
“It’s kind of grabbing in the dark; you never know what you’re going to come up with,” Webb said.
Sophomore Drew Harbinson is measuring the depletion of fat content in birds’ chests. With help from Cink, Harbinson is setting traps, catching birds and measuring the fat content in their chests on a scale of 0-5.
“They use fat for energy and that’s what we’re tracking, to prove that they do that,” Harbinson said.
Harbinson said he enjoys his project because he likes working with animals; he wants to be a marine biologist.
This year’s sophomore and transfer class is the first group of biology majors to be required to take the course.
Morris said the course was added to the major because graduate school, medical schools and most professional graduate degree programs want science students to have experience designing and carrying out an experiment themselves.
“We hope that the class helps students see what research is really like, how science really works and how science is never easy,” Morris said. “You can do your best to design an experiment and it hardly ever works out exactly the way you think it will … (the class teaches students to) use critical thinking skills to design a better experiment and to critically evaluate their outcome.”