The challenge of teaching in the sciences is not only conveying knowledge in the discipline, but also developing essential critical thinking, data analysis, and scientific writing skills. I outline an exercise that can be done easily as part of a microbiology laboratory course. It teaches the nature of the research process, from asking questions and developing a testable hypothesis to writing a scientific paper, as well as the concepts of bacterial growth and two classic techniques for measuring bacterial growth, spectrophotometry, and standard plate method.
© 2015 by National Association of Biology Teachers. All rights reserved. Request permission to photocopy or reproduce article content at the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions Web site at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.
2015
You do not currently have access to this content.
University of California Press