Students as Laboratory and Field Physiologists: Start to Finish.

The University Of Central Florida Board Of Trustees, Orlando FL

Investigators

Abstract

Biological Sciences (61) To prepare undergraduate students for research in physiology and the sciences in general, we are providing an environment that simulates investigative research in a laboratory setting. Students are taking responsibility for the design of experiments, undertaking data collection on equipment that is similar to that seen in a working physiology laboratory, using data analysis software typically used in this area of research, and learning to communicate results of research to the scientific community. We are adapting from models introduced with NSF support at Villanova University and utilizing ideas on student-initiated experimental design published in the physiology education literature. As students are working on these projects in small groups of 3 to 4 students, team building and cooperative research skills are being developed that are essential to all scientists entering our field where there is a very strong emphasis on collaborative multi-investigator and multi-disciplinary research. During the first part of this inquiry-based laboratory course students are involved in moderately structured laboratory exercises that allows them to become familiar with the iWORX system - a computer driven data acquisition and analysis station linked with on-line simulation and instructional support. In these introductory exercises students conduct a selection of 4 laboratory experiments that investigate the effect of body mass and temperature on metabolic rate (oxygen consumption) in fishes, the effect of fatigue on muscle contraction, the effect of exercise on cardio-respiratory physiology and the regulation of fluid balance and body composition in humans. During the second part of the course, students design, conduct, analyze and report on one group investigation based on further study of one of the previous laboratory experimental systems or on a comparative model that more closely simulates physiological research in a field setting. One possibility is to investigate the relationships between metabolic rate and diving patterns of marine turtles using indirect calorimetry (oxygen and CO2 gas analyzers) and the most current technology available for the remote monitoring of diving vertebrates (time depth recorders). Alternately, blood chemistry changes during natural fasting of grey seal pups could be studied through the measurement of blood metabolites (spectrophotometric assays). Students are responsible for all aspects of the development of these investigations, from the starting hypothesis to the finishing formal conference style presentations of data at the end of the course. The equipment acquired to support this course is also increasing our ability to support motivated students in more intensive scientific inquiry through senior thesis research projects.