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Biology 211 Labs

Fall 2013- Ken Marr

Note:     The Labs below are Adobe .pdf documents.

• Lab 1. Heart, Rate, Physical Fitness, and the Scientific Method  

• Lab 2.  Enzyme Action: Testing Catalase  

• Lab 3.   Microscopic Examination of Unicellular and Multicellular Organisms

  Video:  How to Use a Microscope

  Links to Photomicrographs of some of the microorganisms observed in Lab 3:

  • Amoeba

  • Trichonympha   

  • Protococcus     Stained Protococcus

  • Scenedesmus

  • Paramecia (found as a food source in some of the cultures, e.g amoeba)

  • Volvox

  • Spirogyra

  • Human Cheek Cell

  • Index of Microscopic Images and Movies

• Lab 4.   Diffusion and Osmosis in Selectively Permeable Membranes 

  • Ideal Gas Simulation (useful for visualizing the last prelab question)

  Appendices

1. How to Make an Oral Presentation of a Scientific Experiment

2. General Format for writing a Scientific Paper

3. Checklist for a Scientific Paper

4. The Chi-square Test: a Statistical Tool

•  Lab 5.  Alcoholic Fermentation in Yeast

• Lab 6  Alcoholic Fermentation: an Independent Project.    Below are some links that may be of interest:

  • Grading Rubric for the Oral Presentation of Lab 6               Oral Presentation Audience Ground Rules

  • How to Make an Oral Presentation of a Scientific Experiment (Appendix A in lab manual)

  • Effect of sodium fluoride on ethanol production in postmortem tissues NaF is used to inhibit alcoholic fermentation in corpses!

  •  Effect of Ethanol on Plasma Membranes (Adobe Acrobat .pdf file)

  •  Measurement and Prediction of Solvent Toxicity to Yeast

  • Search engine that only searches for Scientific Information:   www.scirus.com

• Lab 7. Use of DPIP Color Changes to Monitor the Rate of Photosynthesis              

• Lab 8.  The Modeling and Microscopic Observations of Mitosis and Meiosis in Plant and Animal Cells

• Photomicrographs of Mitosis in Onion Root Tips

• Photomicrographs of Mitosis in Whitefish Blastula

• Mitosis Practice Problems

• Lab 9. Mitochondrial DNA Analysis using PCR   

  • Sample Calculation of PCR amplified DNA fragment size using hypothetical (fictitious!) data

  • Scanned images of successful lab 9 gels from fall 2011.  Print this document and then follow these directions for completing your lab 9 report...

    • Cut and paste onto page 19 of your report the picture of the last gel (i.e. figure 7) and use it to answer questions 1 - 5 on pages 19 -21 of the lab 9 report pages. To identify the DNA standard fragments in lane #1 of the gel in figure 7 use the relative positions of the two PCR fragments of students 1 - 5 and the  DNA fragment sizes in Table 1 on page 19. Recall that you can use fig. 3 on page 2 of lab 9 to estimate the size of each fragment.

  • Digital Images from Fall 2011 Gels (unfortunately, the resolution of the DNA ladder fragments and/or the inability to see the wells clearly makes it difficult to accurately determine the size of each PCR fragment in some of the gels):   Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3 (xlnt ladder!!), Pic 4 (xlnt ladder!!), Pic 5, Pic 6, Pic 7, Pic 8, Pic 9, Pic 10, Pic 11 (Good DNA Ladder!!), Pic 12

  • Intro to the mtDNA PCR Lab

  • Animation of Polymerase Chain Reaction    Animation of PCR

  • Animation of Gel electrophoresis and use of a DNA probe