There are few instructional tools about data acquisition and management available for undergraduate students. I created this lesson as a Fellow of the Ethics Network for Course-Based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) to fill this gap by providing a lesson that introduces lab notebooks and builds connections to responsible and ethical conduct of research (RECR). While originally developed for a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in microbiology, there are few disciplinary or course specific details included, making this resource easy to adapt to a variety of contexts. The lesson begins with a pre-class assignment which introduces students to the basics of keeping a lab notebook. The in-class instruction provides opportunities for student reflection, short lecture segments, and group work to identify and discuss the connections between data collection practices and RECR. Students who completed the lesson displayed a broader and more complete conception of the connections to RECR topics as well as the utility of the lab notebook.

Primary Image: Lab Notebook image (from this website used under Creative Commons license)