This award provides funds to purchase equipment for the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. A set of undergraduate biochemistry laboratory experiences will be developed, which will be novel in that all the experiments will be focused on one enzyme or the gene coding for that enzyme. The enzyme will be Escherichia coli B- galactosidase. A major student criticism of usual laboratory curriculum is that it is disjointed and the experiments from one week to the next are unrelated. The goals of this project are to improve student interest in learning by providing a coordinated and centrally focused series of experiments, to increase the student's perception of the relevance of different biochemical techniques and to provide a sense of the unity of biochemical laboratory techniques. Equipment will be used for spectrophotometry and kinetics (spectrophotometer and chart recorders), enzyme chromatography (pumps, column monitors, fraction collectors), electrophoresis (power supplies and apparatus) and basic molecular biochemistry (centrifuges, vacuum oven, and transilluminator/camera). The grantee institution is matching this NSF award with funds from non-Federal sources.
