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Transformative Interventions in Cell Biology: The Development and Use of Instructor/Student-Interactive Demonstrations of Key Cell Biology Concepts
Get PDFIn Cell Biology, a sophomore/junior undergraduate-level high-enrollment core course, students are expected to develop a broad and detailed understanding of the functioning of eukaryotic cells. For example, some of the more challenging biological concepts include machinery involved in the replication and translational processes, protein trafficking/orientation in membranes, as well as both G protein-coupled receptor and receptor tyrosine kinase signal transduction pathways. In this instructional article, we describe prior published reports of the use of interactive demonstrations of several of these key biological concepts in the classroom. Furthermore, we narrate our efforts to integrate several of these disparate evidence-based techniques (EBTs) with supplementation of our own demonstrations into a common cell biology curriculum. We have adapted these EBTs to suit large lecture classrooms (200+) as well as extended it to an online course format. We expect the hands-on nature of these learning activities will facilitate active learning of these challenging concepts in the short-term, while helping narrow achievement gaps for marginalized students, increasing student retention in majors such as Cell and Molecular Biology, and lastly for enhancing student success in post-graduate career goals over the long-term. Our overall goal is to share our own experiences deploying these approaches in-person and online that could potentially lead to a more widespread adoption of these learning props in undergraduate cell biology education as well as to stimulate research interests in evaluating the effectiveness of this unique and expanded collection of prop demonstration activities for undergraduate cell biology courses
Evaluation of 18 Bell Pepper Cultivars in Southwest Michigan in 2024
Get PDFA bell pepper cultivar trial was planted at the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center (42.081985, -86.354087, Benton Harbor, Michigan). Bejo (BJ), Clifton (CL), Enza Zaden (EZ), Sakata (SK), Seminis (SE), and United Genetics (UG) seed companies donated bell pepper cultivars for plastic-mulch bedded and trellised hand harvest. Overall trial conditions were excellent, however our pre-plant fertilizer mixing was outsourced this year, and a spreader was rented from the same company. Due to either a mixing error or a misapplication with a piece of unfamiliar or malfunctioning equipment, the plots received a toxic level of boron, which remained in plant tissues for the whole season
The Hoosier Slide: Promoting Engagement with Environment
Get PDFWith unsustainable production models and a plethora of other damaging activities, humans’ strain on the environment has made it impossible to assume that the planet’s ecosystem will sustain future generations (WWF, 2018); our response to this crisis will impact current and future generations and all other species on Earth (Global Stewards, 2022; United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2022). To make a difference, education about the problem needs to be furthered. I worked with the PNW Westville Warriors and the Michigan City Lubeznik Center for the Arts (a community center dedicated to offering programming that balances joy with critical thinking, with the aim of cultivating a lifelong love of art) to learn how to spark environmental awareness through community programming. Together, we brought Indiana artist Corey Hagelberg’s “Hoosier Slide” to PNW’s Westville campus. We wanted to identify a piece that connected to Indiana’s environmental history (the Hoosier Slide tells the story of Indiana’s tallest sand dune, a dune demolished over a period of 30 years for glassmakers and a power plant before the Indiana Dunes were protected by Congress. The mining of this dune has had lasting effects on surrounding wildlife and the environment) Through reflection and mentorship, we learned how to put together educational public presentations with the art and artist at the center. This work has sparked greater awareness of environmental needs in the community, community connections among students, artists, PNW, and the Center for the Arts, and new interest in engagement
Technological Accessibility for Wildlife Telemetry Research
Get PDFOver the course of two years, I conducted original research into improving accessibility for researchers in the field of wildlife telemetry. Wildlife telemetry is a technique used by biologists to track wildlife in the field, which requires the biologist to attach a small radio transmitter to an animal, usually using a specially designed collar, harness, or another means. These transmitters are battery powered and will emit or transmit a regularly timed radio signal that can be received by radio receivers carried by the researchers. Two issues faced by wildlife telemetry researchers are the cost of wildlife telemetry equipment and the inability of hearing-impaired researchers to participate in wildlife telemetry studies. Both problems are created by the inherent nature of the equipment. Should these two issues be solved, two significant barriers to the field of wildlife telemetry would be removed, encouraging greater accessibility to the field of wildlife telemetry. My research demonstrated two potential means of solving these issues. In 2022, I conducted research in designing and building low-cost antennas that could be both constructed and utilized by researchers. These antennas were then tested and compared to the commercial antennas currently used by wildlife telemetry researchers. In 2023, I conducted field tests using commercially available software-defined radios (SDRs). The goal of my experiments was to investigate the possibility of visually displaying telemetry radio signals and comparing reception of those visualized signals to audible reception of the same signals
The Influence of Soil Properties and Land Management on Soil Porewater Chemistry
Get PDFSoil water dynamics influence vegetation health, soil geochemical reactions, and stream chemistry. Water dynamics can be controlled by soil type and land management. It is important to understand water movement due to its influence on soil weathering, microbial activity, and nutrient transport. Water movement can be investigated using water stable isotope variability as a tracer. The purpose of this ongoing study was to analyze stable isotopes and dissolved ions in prairie and agricultural land management sites in Nebraska and Illinois. Prairies typically contain deep-rooted grasses, while agricultural lands contain shallow-rooted row crops. Root depth is considered a major control on rainwater infiltration depths. Soil type and structure also influence infiltration rates, with water moving more easily through coarse sand than fine-textured clays. We hypothesize that soil type influences water residence time, which leads to differences in stable isotope contents. Soil porewater at both Illinois sites showed reduced isotope variability compared to sites in Nebraska, suggesting more mixing of rain events and longer residence times of water in the soil. Through major ion analyses, the Illinois sites were found to have higher electrical conductivities at depth compared to those of the Nebraska sites, likely due to the clay content in the soils increasing the residence time of water, resulting in increased accumulation of mineral weathering. Our results show that soil properties like clay content and vegetation type affect water movement through different soils
Classification of Human Learning Stages via Kernel Distribution Embeddings
No full textAdaptive automation, automation which is responsive to the human\u27s performance via the alteration of control laws or level of assistance, is an important tool for training humans to attain new skills when operating dynamical systems. When coupled with cognitive feedback, adaptive automation has the potential to further facilitate human training, but requires precise assessments of human progression through various learning stages. This is challenging because of the underlying dynamics, as well as the stochasticity inherent to human action. We propose a data-driven approach to assess learning stages in a complex quadrotor landing task that is responsive to stochastic, human-in-the-loop quadrotor dynamics. We represent each learning stage as a distribution of canonical trajectories for that learning stage, then employ kernel distribution embeddings in combination with a rule-based heuristic, to determine which canonical distribution a sample landing trajectory is closest to. We demonstrate our approach on experimental human subject data, and use our approach to evaluate the efficacy of cognitively-based adaptive automation designed to calibrate self-confidence. Our approach is more accurate than standard classification methods, such as nearest centroid assignment, which rely on metrics that are not inherently suited to analysis of trajectories of stochastic dynamical systems
