Taking Temperature with Leaves: A Semester-Long Structured-Inquiry Research Investigation for Undergraduate Plant Biology

Inquiry- and course-based research pedagogies have demonstrated effectiveness for preparing undergraduate biology students with authentic scientific skills and competencies, yet many students lack the experience to engage successfully in open-ended research activities without sufficient scaffolding...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American biology teacher 2020-04, Vol.82 (4), p.247-255
Main Author: Copenhaver-Parry, Paige E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biology
Botany
climate
Content Area Writing
course-based undergraduate research experience
Curricula
curriculum
Data analysis
Data collection
Data processing
dicots
ecology
ecophysiology
Image analysis
Image processing
INQUIRY & INVESTIGATION
Leaves
Plant biology
Plant ecology
Plants
Plants (Botany)
regression
Research Methodology
Research projects
Research Skills
Scaffolding
Scientific papers
Skills
Students
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Description
Summary:Inquiry- and course-based research pedagogies have demonstrated effectiveness for preparing undergraduate biology students with authentic scientific skills and competencies, yet many students lack the experience to engage successfully in open-ended research activities without sufficient scaffolding and structure. Further, curricula for student-centered laboratory activities are lacking for several biological disciplines, including plant biology and botany. In this article, I describe a semester-long structured-inquiry research curriculum developed for a plant biology course taught to second-year biology students that integrates key elements of inquiry and discovery while providing a structured approach to gaining research skills. In the research project, students collect leaves from woody dicot plants across a range of environments that are characterized by different mean annual temperatures, and investigate the relationship between various leaf characteristics and temperature. Curricular materials are provided to teach skills in scientific paper reading, field data collection, data processing including microscopy and image analysis, quantitative data analysis in R, biological inference, and scientific writing. This comprehensive, ready-to-implement curriculum is suitable for plant biology, botany, and plant ecology courses and is particularly valuable for students with no prior research experience.
ISSN:0002-7685
1938-4211
DOI:10.1525/abt.2020.82.4.247