Solving a Simple Drug Delivery Model Using Analytical, Linear Algebra, and Numeric Approaches part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop 2019:Activities
The delivery of orally ingested drugs, such as pills and capsules, can be roughly modeled as a system of first-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs). This type of "drug-delivery model" can be ...

Modeling Rare Plant Distributions Using ArcGIS part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
In this activity, students work with rare plant occurrence data from the Nature Reserve of Orange County, California to create species distribution maps in ArcGIS. Students are given shapefiles of species ...

The Great Clade Race - Zombie Island Edition part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This activity is a modification of the "Great Clade Race" (Goldsmith, 2003). This activity is great for helping students understand cladograms/phylogenies, but the original reinforces some problematic ...

Tidepooling Field trip (online) part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
Tidepooling Field Trip online (developed for remote learning during COVID-19 pandemic); students will watch video and review photos to simulate a field experience as they explore Pillar Point tidepools (as they ...

Exploring eukaryotic protein structure and post-translational modifications. part of CUREnet:Institutes:Bowie State University:Examples
This CURE will provide opportunity for students to think and act as researchers by using computational, biochemical, and bioanalytical techniques to examine tick antigen proteins. The CURE is designed as a lab for upper-level students who are taking or have taken a one-semester introductory biochemistry course, but two semesters would be even better. It could also be adapted for cell/molecular biology or (bio) analytical chemistry instrumentational analysis labs. It has been taught for classes ranging from 12-24 students. Ticks are notorious vectors of viral, protozoan, and bacterial diseases, including Lyme disease. While an anti-vector vaccine capable of protecting people from diseases transmitted by a particular tick species is an alluring goal, only one such anti-tick vaccine is currently available. This vaccine targets Bm86, a protein from the midgut of Rhipicephalus microplus, a cattle tick. Not only does the vaccine limit parasitism of the cattle by ticks, data suggests that it can also prevent transmission of tick-borne diseases including bovine anaplasmosis and babesiosis. However, similar vaccination approaches have not succeeded thus far against ticks that transmit diseases to humans, and little is known about the antibody response to the antigen, or about the protein itself. Since the protein's structure and function are unknown, the research goal of this CURE is to purify Bm86 using an insect cell/baculovirus expression system and characterize it, including domain structure and post-translational modifications (glycosylation sites). There are homologs to Bm86 in every sequenced tick species examined, and future CUREs will characterize some of the homologs including those in Ixodes scapularis, the tick that is mainly responsible for transmitting Lyme in the eastern US, and Haemaphysalis longicornis, the Asian longhorned tick, a newly-discovered invasive species in the area that also has significant disease-transmitting potential. By understanding the structure and post-translational modifications of this protein, we hope to gain a better understanding of how to make effective anti-tick vaccines, including those for humans, that may prevent transmission of Lyme disease. Importantly, the basic parameters of this CURE can be used to examine other proteins besides tick antigens. For example, during the pandemic, the CURE pivoted from the tick antigen to the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein, which was also expressed in an insect cell system. Instead of characterizing glycosylation sites, we characterized phosphorylation sites. It's therefore possible to use this same framework for many different eukaryotic proteins that may be of research interest.

Dino Doom part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This is an online learning experience that transports learners around the world to different locations related to the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event. Students will collect and analyze evidence to ...

Neurogenetics Laboratory: Mapping a functional circuit for cold nociception in Drosophila part of CUREnet:Institutes:Alabama State University:Examples
Students will work in small groups to identify neural populations that may be involved in the Drosophila larval response to noxious cold. They will use the GAL4/UAS expression system to excite or inhibit neural populations and assess the impact of their manipulation on the larvae's behavioral response to cold. If a relevant neural population is identified, students will then identify (based on current literature) genes that are likely to be involved in neurite development and/or maintenance in that population. They will use mutations and/or RNA interference to disrupt the function of these genes in the population of interest and assess the effect of the disruption on neuronal morphology and larval behavior.

Plastic Amniote Phylogeny part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Students use plastic animals to discuss and synthesize their knowledge about the evolutionary relationships between different vertebrates (amniotes). In small groups, students get a bag of animals (e.g., mammals, ...

Plankton Lab part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Plankton Lab online (developed for remote learning during COVID-19 pandemic); students will explore plankton samples from three different locations in San Francisco Bay, identify organisms, and characterize the ...

Characterizing the Aging Process Using Caenorhabditis elegans and Reverse Genetics part of CUREnet:Institutes:Community College of Rhode island:Examples
Using gene silencing (RNAi) in the nemotode C. elegans, students will identify genetic modifiers of proteins with roles in aging by reverse genetics. Specifically, students will analyze the effect of knocking down genes on the level of aging-related proteins tagged with fluorophores (GFP, RFP, etc.). Each group of students will use function-specific RNAi libraries (transcription factors, kinases, etc) already established in our lab. Furthermore, students will evaluate the effect of genetic modifiers on proteostasis and lifespan. In addition to becoming familiar with C. elegans work and appreciating the use of model organisms, the students will master microscopy, genetic crosses, gene silencing, and molecular and biochemical readout assays such as qPCR and immunoblotting.