Students majoring in the life sciences are taking part in a new curriculum that is organized around a series of investigative laboratory modules. The program now extends over the five quarters of the freshman and sophomore years, has greatly decreased emphasis on lectures, features extensive use of computers and technology, and involves integration with other disciplines. Students work in small groups and model, plan, carry out, and report on their experiments. These same concepts are being extended into upper-division and nonmajors courses. The new approach has brought into sharp focus the need for new analytical techniques that will extend the number of biological principles that students may prove for themselves. The techniques should be quantitative, easily mastered, and linked to the cmmputer for data analysis, ready comparison with national data bases, report writing, and research presentations. This project funds a platform of four techniques for collecting images in digital form for analysis and quantitation on a laboratory network of Macintosh computers. The four are a flatbed scanner (to digitize graphic data), a Hi-8 camcorder (to capture macro images, time lapse, and fast frame), monochrome video cameras (to capture medium light intensity macro to micro scale images), and a sensitive CCD color video camera (primarily for microscope work). Appropriate accessories and data storage devices also are obtained under this project.
