This project funds two new research-oriented courses in the upper-division biology and environmental science curricula: (1) Life at the Edge: the Physiological Ecology of Life in Extreme Environments and (2) Bioenergetics. Students in these new courses are engaged in the actual "doing" of science as they conduct open-ended scientific inquiries for the lab portion of these courses. The new equipment, together with existing equipment, enables students to design their own research projects in many areas of ecological physiology and bioenergetics, including studies of whole animal responses to environment as well as the cellular bases to those responses. These research experiences are critical to providing context for the lecture portions of these courses as well as stimulating the development of skills in scientific inquiry that are not possible in other formats. The objective is that students learn and use methods of physiological inquiry and construct their own understanding of physiological phenomena. Another aim is to bring these skills into the classroom and design and implement a "research as curriculum" pedagogical model.
