|  Admissions  |  Resources for Students  |   Resources for Faculty & Staff  |  About the Graduate School  | 

Huckabay Fellowship Announcement

Huckabay Fellowship Application

Huckabay FAQ Page

Guidelines for Huckabay Mentors

Fellows and Mentors 

Examples of Successful Proposals

Preparing Future Faculty

Huckabay Teaching Fellowship Application 

Astrobiology Laboratory Experience – ASTBIO 196

Diane Carney, History of Science, Astrobiology Program

 Mentors:

Dr. Stacy Palen, Lecturer, Astronomy Department
Prof. Richard Gammon, Oceanography  and Chemistry Departments, Astrobiology Program

 Project Motivation:

            Teaching 100-level, introductory science courses in the university setting serves the dual purpose of recruiting future science majors and exposing non-science majors to science and its process.  Currently, the 100-level science courses offered at the University of Washington are rooted in a particular scientific discipline.  For example, students may take an introductory course in Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, etc.  Each of these disciplines considers a certain set of questions to be within its scope, while other questions are ignored.  The students who have taken such courses therefore receive instruction in a particular discipline but they do not necessarily learn about other disciplines or how science functions as a whole.  We see a need for an introductory-level course that would expose both science and non-science majors to the many facets of science by focusing on high-interest questions that transcend traditional boundaries, and by utilizing the approaches of several disciplines toward answering such questions.

The participants in the Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington know about high-interest questions as well as inter-disciplinary interaction and instruction.  Faculty and graduate students in the program recognize the appeal of asking fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of life on our planet and in the universe.  Over the past three years at the University of Washington, a graduate curriculum for Astrobiology students has been established, but there is not yet an undergraduate course in Astrobiology. This is a disappointment to many undergraduates who have expressed enthusiasm for the subject.  Whenever Astrobiology is introduced to a room of undergraduates, there is a buzz of excitement and the desire to learn more about it.  We will capitalize upon this natural interest and excitement  by developing a 100-level lecture course in Astrobiology (ASTBIO 195) and, as described below for this proposal, an accompanying laboratory course (ASTBIO 196) to be taken simultaneously with the lecture course. 

The proposed laboratory course, as well as the lecture course, will be developed around the following four central questions.  For each question, the likely lecture topics and an example of a hands-on activity related to this motivating question are listed:

                1.         From an astronomical perspective, where are we from?

        The lectures will cover stellar synthesis of the elements, and planetary formation and evolution.  A parallel activity in the laboratory course might include the students’ construction and use of their own spectroscopes and a discussion about spectroscopy and what we know about the universe through this tool.

                 2.         From a biological and evolutionary perspective, where are we from?

        The lectures will cover the history of life on earth and a corresponding activity might involve the construction of an evolutionary tree from a data set or an investigation relating to the theory of natural selection.
 

3.         Is life likely to exist elsewhere in the universe?

        The lectures will include the discovery of extra-solar planets, while an activity might involve the use of the internet to research and analyze the most recent findings regarding extra-solar planets and their atmospheres.

 4.         How can we find it? (How are scientists going about finding it?)

        The lectures will include the investigations of Mars and Europa, and will also discuss the study of microbes that inhabit extreme environments on Earth as analogs for life that may exist beyond the Earth.  The corresponding laboratory exercise might include culturing such “extremophiles” and analyzing their genetic material. (DNA extraction is an enlightening experience in and of itself!)

Based on our previous experience and supported by decades of pedagogical research, hands-on activities and laboratory experiences will be essential tools for motivating students and successfully teaching them in this interdisciplinary environment.  It will also be imperative that the laboratory course be integrated thoughtfully with the lecture course in its choice of activities, order of presentation, and means of assessment. In the process of all the course’s laboratory activities, we will cover concepts that are central to any introductory science course: the scientific method, critical analysis of data, an understanding of error, etc.  Introducing these concepts as a necessary part of answering our motivating questions will bear meaning and import on the process of science and increase the students’ learning and appreciation for science.

Project Implementation and Assessment:

The preparation for and planning of this laboratory course through a Huckabay Fellowship would take place during Summer or Autumn Quarter, 2002, and it is anticipated that the course will be offered Winter and Spring Quarters, 2003 with Stacy Palen and Diane Carney as the instructors of the lecture and laboratory courses, respectively.  The success of the Huckabay Fellowship period will be indicated through the successful implementation of the laboratory course.  We plan to teach this course for two consecutive quarters so that changes can readily be incorporated while the input from CIDR and from the students is fresh.  After teaching the course for two quarters, a carefully designed and tested course will be ready for other Astrobiology faculty and/or graduate students to offer beginning Autumn, 2003.  Far from being an isolated project, we anticipate that this combined lecture and laboratory course in Astrobiology will become a popular and regular component of undergraduate science education at the University of Washington.

| Return to the Top |
 

 The Graduate School   G-1 Communications Building    Box 353770  
University of Washington  Seattle  WA   98195   Phone: 206-543-5900