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Science Education Alliance membership
Undergrad experience aids scientific research advance
Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011
By WSU News Service
PULLMAN - Undergraduates will perform fundamental scientific experimentation and research this fall in a novel and collaborative way as a result of WSU's selection for membership in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Alliance (SEA).
WSU is one of 12 institutions of higher education chosen this year for membership in SEA - a national coalition of universities and colleges developing educational initiatives to advance scientific research.
“As President Obama pointed out in his State of the Union Address, there is a recognized need to educate the citizens of this country about the inner workings of science and how this essential engine drives societal and economic progress," said William Davis, associate professor in the School of Molecular Biosciences.
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Davis and colleague Patrick Carter, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, led WSU’s competitive application for SEA membership and will implement the curriculum.
Hands-on hard work, perseverance
The curriculum is from the SEA’s initial educational program offering, known as the National Genomics Research Initiative (NGRI).
The curriculum is from the SEA’s initial educational program offering, known as the National Genomics Research Initiative (NGRI).
The NGRI lab will be an option offered through WSU's two-semester freshman biology sequence. Students will receive immediate hands-on experience with the scientific method. They will gain an understanding of the hard work and perseverance necessary to push scientific understanding forward, Davis said.
Since its launch in 2008, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has committed $4 million to training nearly 1,700 students from 40 alliance colleges and universities. Following the NGRI curriculum, students spend a year-long laboratory class discovering bacterial viruses (phages) in local soils. They have isolated at least 1,400 previously unknown phages and analyzed the DNA sequence of nearly 100.
Experimentation, collaboration, communication
“We anticipate students will begin learning from the outset how to formulate and test hypotheses, gain proficiency in specific experimental techniques and become more comfortable working in a research environment,” said Davis.
“We anticipate students will begin learning from the outset how to formulate and test hypotheses, gain proficiency in specific experimental techniques and become more comfortable working in a research environment,” said Davis.
Carter said the curriculum also will help students gain a broader understanding of the role of communication and collaboration in scientific research.
“The entire laboratory group must learn to work collaboratively," he said, "first identifying a single phage to be sequenced and then working together to figure out the protein messages encoded in the genome that give rise to their phage’s unique properties.”
“This laboratory sequence … will provide students the opportunity to directly experience the power of combining information and techniques from different disciplines," Davis said. "For instance, NGRI students will learn and apply concepts taken from diverse fields such as ecology, evolution, molecular biology, structural biology, mathematics and computer science.”
“Students will be expected to submit their findings to public databases," Carter said. "Eventually their work will be collated with the results from students at other institutions in peer-reviewed manuscripts, providing them with experience in communicating scientific data and broadly disseminating novel discoveries,” Carter said.
Not limited to STEM majors
The curriculum will be available to a broad cross-section of students at WSU. Programs like engineering, business, communications, liberal arts, and the physical and biological sciences require entry level biology courses as part of their degree programs.
The curriculum will be available to a broad cross-section of students at WSU. Programs like engineering, business, communications, liberal arts, and the physical and biological sciences require entry level biology courses as part of their degree programs.
“HHMI is especially interested in evaluating how project-based laboratories transform the educational experiences of all undergraduates," Carter said, "especially those students who, because of social, financial or geographical limitations, did not have access to an advanced pre-baccalaureate education in biology.”
“While it is exciting to think about providing advanced research training to freshman science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students, the greatest long-term impact may be observed in students from other disciplines,” said Davis.
"We see the participation of students from non-STEM areas in this course as one small step towards meeting the enormous challenge (of science literacy) facing the state of Washington and the nation,” he said.
In addition to WSU, the SEA awarded memberships to Johns Hopkins University, Brown University, Ohio State University, Carthage College, the College of St. Scholastica, Georgia Gwinnett College, Montclair State University, Ouachita Baptist University, Southern Connecticut State University, the University of Florida and Xavier University of Louisiana. Fourteen institutions of higher education received associate memberships.
More information about the HHMI Science Education Alliance is online at http://www.hhmi.org/grants/sea. More information about the WSU School of Molecular Biosciences is at http://www.smb.wsu.edu. More information about the WSU School of Biological Sciences is at http://sbs.wsu.edu.
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