College Labs: General Biology
All of the labs listed below would be appropriate for a first-year General Biology series. The list includes our "101 Collection"—which are our most popular introductory level labs—plus some others that are a little more open-ended.
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EvoBeaker: Sickle-Cell AllelesAn interactive simulation of the classic malaria and sickle-cell anemia system is used to explore natural selection and genetic drift. Students examine African villages with different malaria death rates. First they use the Hardy-Weinberg equation to calculate the expected proportion of sickle-cell carriers from HbS and HbA allele frequencies. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EvoBeaker: Darwinian SnailsAn introductory lab that examines the assumptions behind natural selection using an engaging interactive simulation of green crabs preying on periwinkle snails. Students are able to "violate" each assumption in turn to explore whether evolution by natural selection still occurs. Exercises are targeted to address common misconceptions among biology students. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EvoBeaker: How the Guppy Got Its SpotsRecreate Endler's famous studies of guppy spot brightness in different streams in Trinidad. Students observe the pattern of spot brightness across several pools, then apply classic experimental techniques such as transplants, removals, and behavioral studies to uncover the mechanisms behind the pattern. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EvoBeaker: Flowers and TreesIntroduces students to evolutionary trees using an interactive simulation of Columbine flower diversification. Students observe Columbine populations split and diverge while an expanding evolutionary tree illustrates each population's history. Students further learn to interpret evolutionary trees by creating their own and reconstructing the history of mystery populations. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EvoBeaker: Hardy, Weinberg and KuruUses Kuru disease in New Guinea to teach Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Students discover the equilibrium principle from their observations, and play with violating the assumptions to explore the mechanisms of evolution. Also see the effect of heterozygote advantage. Suitable for both intro bio and advanced courses. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Isle RoyaleThis popular laboratory explores basic population biology concepts including exponential and logistic growth and carrying capacity. It is based on the textbook example of a predator-prey system involving wolves and moose on an island in Lake Superior. Students start out by characterizing the growth of a colonizing population of moose in the absence of predators. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Keystone PredatorThis laboratory recreates the famous experiments of Paine and colleagues in the Pacific Northwest with the sea star Pisaster (and 8 other marine intertidal species). Students do transplant experiments to figure out competitive relationships and sample gut contents to construct a food web. Next they use their data to predict what will happen when each predator is removed from the system. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Nutrient Pollution (formerly "Sewage")What will happen if your city starts dumping lots of extra sewage into your local lake? ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Intermediate Disturbance HypothesisUsing a model of succession from grasses to trees, students start out by observing a successional sequence without disturbance. Then they get to start setting fires. By systematically varying the size and frequency of fires, they recreate the standard textbook graph of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis showing that species diversity is highest at intermediate levels of disturbance. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Niches and Competitive ExclusionThis fun and engaging laboratory, affectionately referred to as "the bunny lab", explores ecological niches and the competitive exclusion principle. Can four identical species of rabbits coexist in a yard with a limited amount of the only source of food (lettuce)? What would happen if a rabbit with a broader diet (e.g., lettuce and carrots) were to invade the yard? ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Barnacles and TidesThis is a recreation of the classic experiments of Connell on why the barnacles Chthamalus and Balanus have distinct distributions in the rocky intertidal zone of Scotland. Students first observe the distributions, then try to tease apart the causes through a series of removal and transplant experiments. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
EcoBeaker: Varieties of CompetitionIn this lab in students play the role of "ecological detectives" presented with several different communities of four mysterious species. They are asked to figure out the relationships between pairs of species by doing standard ecological experiments (removals, additions, etc.). Among the potential relationships are scramble competition, predation, indirect competition, and so on. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
OsmoBeaker: DiffusionThis lab confronts common misconceptions about diffusion using engaging simulated molecular-level experiments. The lab first focuses students' attention on how individual molecules move under different conditions. It then sets up a fun experiment that allows them to explore whether nerve cells could use diffusion to move materials from the cell body to the synapses at the tips of their axons. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
OsmoBeaker: OsmosisThis popular lab places students in the role of a doctor providing intravenous fluids to a patient. They must compose an intravenous fluid that does not cause the patient's red blood cells to expand or shrink. Using simulated cells, students explore osmosis with no, one, two, and many solutes. ... Read more + Add to course collection |
Mitosis & Meiosis Demystified: Mitosis, MeiosisThese two interactive tutorials, one on mitosis, the other on meiosis, were created by the University of Amsterdam. These are among the best interactive tutorials we've seen. ... Read more + Add to course collection |