Description

This module includes a series of in-lab/in-class/homework activities to prepare students to analyze their own research data. The activities guide students 1) through drawing tables and graphs by hand, writing table/figure legends; 2) making tables and figures using statistical software JMP and interpreting their results; 3) analyzing a real dataset on land snail communities and the factors driving species richness.

Intended Teaching Setting: 

• Course Level: Upper-level Biology majors
• Instructional Setting: The setting is flexible as the activities can be assigned as homework or completed in a lab setting or online.
• Implementation Timeframe: This is flexible as the instructor can assign all of these as homework or all of them can be done in lab. I usually assign one each week as homework and so they are completed over an ~ 4 week period.

Acknowledgements

This series of activities has many origins. The activity on making tables and figures has been heavily modified by KEP from a lab initially received from Dr. J. Kelly McCoy who had modified it from a lab by Dr. Michael Palmer, Oklahoma State University. The practice snail dataset is from a project funded by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, collected along with Dr. Matt Kuchta, Dr. Amanda Little, Terrell Hyde, Chris Lynum, and Rochelle Amundson. The Urban land snail data was funded by an HHMI grant to UTRGV run by Dr. Joanne Rampersad-Ammons and the native community data is funded by Texas Parks & Wildlife in collaboration with Dr. Jeff Nekola, Dr. Ben Hutchins, and Briante Najev.

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