|
Research System Home
Page
Description of
Research System
|
|
Manduca sexta Cellular/Molecular
Investigations
A major goal of college science courses is teaching
students to do science--including generating hypotheses,
designing experiments, collecting and interpreting data,
performing statistical analyses, integrating data sets,
interpreting the research literature, and writing formal
laboratory reports. Attaining these goals in the
cellular/molecular curriculum at the introductory level can
be a particular challenge. The students' limited experience
with sophisticated and abstract concepts, compounded by
their limited exposure to contemporary techniques and
equipment, make it difficult to give introductory students
wide ranging freedom in the laboratory.
One response to this situation is to investigate a
relatively familiar but not readily predictable phenomenon.
A key here is that the lab series is a guided investigation
in which the faculty sets the boundaries narrowly. A
question(s) is posed and the techniques are selected by the
teacher. The outcome of the experiment however is not
immediately obvious. While not truly an open-ended,
investigative experience, students must exercise their
creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking skills in
order to formulate a hypothesis, design the appropriate
controls, and interpret the data. This approach also has the
advantages of ensuring some measure of student success and
building technical skills for future laboratory work.
Manduca sexta offers a particularly rich
opportunity for doing cellular/molecular laboratories at the
introductory undergraduate level using this
guided-investigation approach. The hemolymph is easy to
obtain and can be analyzed by a variety of basic techniques
(e.g. protein concentration determination, protein activity
assays, SDS-PAGE). A variety of treatments can be imposed on
the insect and the effects can be measured as changes in the
hemolymph. One such set of experiments might examine the
response of Manduca sexta larvae to a bacterial infection.
Another approach might be to examine hemolymph at various
developmental stages.
Explore the possibilities of using M. sexta for
cellular/molecular labs:
|
