University science departments today face many challenges, not least the call to teach more students with fewer staff, and less money. As
\na result, the pressure is on to cut costs and make efficient use of time\u2026and laboratory components of classes represent some of the more
\nexpensive and labour-intensive aspects of science education. Since my days as an undergraduate student, there has been a gradual trend
\n\u2013 to reduce the number of laboratory classes in a semester, or to drop lab components of courses and replace them with problem sets, more
\nlectures, or more recently virtual, computer-based labs.
\nThis trend is disturbing, for two reasons (well, more than two, but time is limited).
\nFirst, it deprives students of the opportunity to actually do science. Imagine if music performance majors didn\u2019t play instruments or sing
\nuntil their senior year, or if athletes trained without playing their sport, until they registered in \u201cBasketball 495, Senior Practicum\u201d. Of
\ncourse, those would be rather absurd situations, but as an analogy of how science programs are typically structured, increasingly it\u2019s not far
\noff.* Of course, history and theory have their place in science education, but they can\u2019t be everything. Because doing science is very much an
\nart \u2013 there are manual skills involved in manipulating equipment, skills of intuition needed to frame an interesting question, and formulate
\nand test hypotheses to attempt to answer it, skills of flexibility and patience to work with and explain the often ambiguous, messy results of
\nreal-world experiments\u2026
\nIf we want to produce insightful, creative scientists, or professionals in science-based fields like medicine, engineering, or even a citizenry
\nthat can truly be described as scientifically literate, we need to give our students the opportunity to practice doing science. That\u2019s what this
\nlab is for.
\nSecond, beyond just gaining skill in scientific investigation, there are less-tangible benefits to laboratory education that are difficult for
\nstudents to replicate by reading a textbook or listening to a lecture. My job, as a biology teacher, is to invite my students to fall in love with
\nbiology as a field of study. That can be done via lectures, yes, but there\u2019s something much more alluring about science when one has the op-
\nportunity to actually try their hand at it.
\nMy father taught chemistry at the University of Waterloo for over 30 years. I once asked him why he chose to go into chemistry in the first
\nplace. His answer was that more than anything else, it was the vivid colours and strange smells of chemical solutions that drew him in.
\nA few years ago, I found my PhD advisor, on a particularly stressful, no-good, very bad day, sitting at the microscope looking at grasshopper
\novaries, which had little to do with anything that needed doing at the time. He just looked up at me and said, \u201cI decided I needed to look at
\nbeautiful things for a while,\u201d. Doing science is a sensory experience, and in many ways, a return to being a kid and being thrilled at discov-
\nering how something is put together, or how one thing leads to another.
\nThis fall, students in my introductory biology class will meet a species of bacterium that infects plants, and actually genetically engineers its
\nhost, forcing the plant to provide food and shelter. Later in the term, they will bring in food or other household items, and test them for their
\ntendency to cause mutations in bacteria, and most likely be stunned, fascinated, and perhaps disturbed by what they discover. And just
\nmaybe, they\u2019ll start to fall in love.
\nThat course is just one among seven that will use this facility this school year. It\u2019s a small facility, but it\u2019s a good one, and it allows my col-
\nleagues and I to develop curricula that will give our students opportunities they would not have in similar courses at other institutions.
\nThat\u2019s why this laboratory is so important, and that is why I want to say a big thank-you to two levels of government, and a number of
\ndonors \u2013 the Duecks in particular \u2013 for your support in making this kind of education possible. I hope and pray that this facility, and those
\nof us who work in it, will be worthy of the faith and goodwill you have shown us.
\n* Lindgren, Clark (2010) \u201cTeaching by doing: turning a biology curriculum upside down.\u201d Skeptic 15(4):35-37.
\nSeptember 3, 2010
\nJohn Brubacher, Professor of Biology, gave a speech at the opening of CMU\u2019s new Science Lab:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
University science departments today face many challenges, not least the call to teach more students with fewer staff, and less money. As a result, the pressure is on to cut costs and make efficient use of time\u2026and laboratory components of classes represent some of the more expensive and labour-intensive aspects of science education. Since my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25,5],"tags":[29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}