Biology
Allegheny College
Computer simulations supplement wet labs
Reproduced with permission from NeXT
Computer, Inc.
A Reference
Guide to NeXT in Higher Education, Fall 1992
ยช
1992 NeXT Computer, Inc
For most students enrolled in their first year of biology,
mastering scientific concepts often takes a backseat to
understanding the array of alien-looking equipment in the
biology laboratory. Until recently, students at Allegheny
College were no exception.
"Students were spending the majority of their lab time
trying to comprehend the equipment. As a result, they were
not as engaged in the experiments they were performing-or
in the process of science-as they should have been," says
Ann Kleinschmidt, assistant professor of biology at the
college.
Working with Charles fleming of Allegheny's Educational
Computing Services, Kleinschmidt developed a novel approach
to help students quickly grasp the basics and move onto the
core concepts of the class. "We were at the point in the
Biology Department where there was definitely a need for
something beyond a textbook to help students get familiar
with the course materials and procedures," Kleinschmidt
explains. The solution: creating a series of 12 NeXT-based
pre-lab applications, called the Gator Pre-labs, to
supplement students' weekly wet labs.
Each week for three months last fall, Kleinschmidt prepared
pre-lab lessons for the students and then gave them to
fleming, who created NeXTSTEP applications. Via a
microscope or color television camera, fleming captured
scientific images and incorporated them into applications
using a NeXTdimension board. He used Mathematica
for data analysis and Diagram! to produce active diagrams
of equipment and lab procedures. fleming says that
Interface Builder was particularly helpful in creating the
lab applications.
"Interface Builder made it possible for us to design a
substantial program each week," he says. "Think about it.
We started with nothing. And every week of the 12-week
course, we beat our deadline and built a functional,
bug-free program. That says a lot about NeXT's
capabilities."
Each of the pre-labs comprises several parts, including a
short quiz based on a reading assignment and simulations of
experiments and procedures students will conduct in wet
labs that week. As part of the pre-lab, students are asked
to form a hypothesis regarding each experiment. After
completing the experiment, they comment on whether the
results supported the hypothesis and suggest additional
experiments to further test the hypothesis.
"An advantage of using NeXT for biology," says
Kleinschmidt, "is that a much wider range of possible
conditions can be tried in testing hypotheses. The students
are limited by the wet labs because there isn't time to do
multiple experiments. Students are spending more time than
ever before evaluating data, and they are more engaged in
the work than the pre-NeXT students were."
The Gator Pre-Labs application series is available via
anonymous FTP from pellns.alleg.edu in /pub
/next/Biology.
Charles fleming
Applications Developer
Allegheny College
Meadville, PA 16335
(814) 332-3312
cfleming@alleg.edu