Hormones and antibiotics in nature: a laboratory module designed to broaden undergraduate perspectives on typically human-centered topics.

ABSTRACT: Bringing discovery-based research into undergraduate laboratory courses increases student motivation and learning gains over traditional exercises that merely teach technique or demonstrate well-documented phenomena. Laboratory experiences are further enhanced when they are designed to challenge student perspectives on topics relevant to their lives. To this end, a laboratory module on antibiotics and hormones, which are generally discussed in the context of human health, was developed for students to explore the multifaceted roles of antibiotics and hormones in nature (e.g. interspecies communication) via reading primary scientific literature and performing discovery-based experiments. The main objective of this module was to increase the general biological literacy of students as determi

SUBMITTER: Weber CF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4278499 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature