Introductory Biology Course Features Labs that Students Attend Whenever, Wherever They Want

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- For some nonscience majors, the one-credit laboratory needed to satisfy their science requirement looms large, casting a pall over the entire semester.

But students taking Michael Hudecki's "Biological Sciences 129-130: Perspectives in Human Biology" course at the University at Buffalo get to decide where and when they want to do their labs.

That's because the lab is a series of research exercises that students do on their own time.

That makes a lot of sense given the course's goal, which is to introduce the non-science major to the scientific method, said Hudecki, who has taught the course for 14 years.

The course explores the structural and functional characteristics of living things, with an emphasis on human biology and genetics. It's also designed to help students develop the ability to think critically, to understand and appreciate living things -- especially the human organism -- and to appreciate how new scientific knowledge is developed and applied. Recitations are held before each lab report is due.

Thirty percent of the grade is based on required lab reports.

The first lab in the course requires that students go to a natural and relatively undisturbed setting that can be aquatic or terrestrial or both. Sites suggested on Hudecki's lab Web site are the protected Letchworth Woods area on UB's North (Amherst) Campus, a nearby nature walk, the wooded property of a UB biology professor or a natural setting of the students' choosing. The Web site may be viewed at http://www.biology.buffalo.edu/courses/bio129/Lectures/lecture3.html.

"This exercise gets students out into the woods or the creek bed," said Hudecki, research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. "Students who know the local area have chosen the Niagara Gorge or Zoar Valley, an ancient forest about an hour away. We even had a student who had traveled to New York City and chose Central Park."

Students are advised that they must go with a partner and that they should spend at least two, preferably three, hours there, just before either sundown or sunrise because that's when biological activity is most apparent.

The assignment has four specific directions: 1) find evidence of energy transformation; 2) find evidence of reproduction; 3) find evidence of the aging phenomenon and 4) find evidence of human activity and describe whether it has been positive or negative.

"Use your eyesight to view things closely and from a distance," the Web site instructs students. "Use your nose to smell, your ears to hear and fingers to touch. . .Stand very still for periods of time and closely absorb life immediately around you."

Another lab for the course includes making a case as a lawyer would for why a suspect is guilty in a fictional on-campus murder whodunit, written by Hudecki. Based on DNA evidence that he provides, students must arrange the DNA base sequences to find out which match the DNA found at the crime scene and which don't.

There is no textbook for the course; instead, students are provided with an extensive set of notes, PowerPoint presentations, slides and videos, some of which are viewed in class. Hudecki also encourages students to consult an online biology textbook by Harvard professor emeritus John Kimball.