This project provides funds for expanding and improving undergraduate biopsychology teaching laboratory curriculum. Two upgraded versions of current courses (Laboratories in Neuroanatomy and Animal Learning) and two new ones (Laboratories in Hormones and Behavior and Human Psychophysiology) are being offered to approximately 200 biopsychology majors. A laboratory complement is provided to lecture course material and emphasizes the dynamic, i.e., ever-changing, nature of scientific discovery. Other goals of the laboratory curriculum are as follows: (1) to provide undergraduates with hands on experience in state-of-the-art neuroscience research methodologies through small group instruction in the laboratory, preparing them for careers in the health sciences; (2) to teach undergraduates the scientific method, by having them design and conduct independent experiments to test specific, self-generated scientific hypotheses; (3) to improve scientific literacy (including critical thinking) and communication, by requiring students to read the original scientific literature and present their own data in written and/or oral form; (4) to enhance our students' computer usage skills. Achievement of these goals enables graduates: (1) to be cognizant of their own physiology; (2) to evaluate critically the enormous amount of information (scientific or otherwise) presented by the media; (3) to compete successfully in the markeplace for jobs or additional postgraduate education; (4) to succeed in the increasingly technology-driven workplace of current and future society.
