BERG > HHMI project > Laboratories

Possible goals for labs

• Learning physics
• NOT showing what is given in lecture works
• Learning how to think about a measurement to answer a physics question
• Designing measurements
• How design affects uncertainty
• Understanding and controlling variables / uncontrollable variables
•  Seeing the value of physics for biology
•  Learning scientific epistemology – experimentally driven
• Lab as prediction --
• interpretation of uncertainty as an ensemble parameter 
• Lab as testing of theoretical models
•  Learning experimental skills
• How to design an experiment to answer a scientific question
• Implications of design for uncertainty and systematic error

• How to interpret the collected data

• Understanding of uncertainly/systematic & random

• Understanding of ensembles / why do we take multiple data?
• Tools / error analysis, spreadsheets, graphs
• Presentation skills (posters), graphically– explain meaning mathematically
• Contextualizing labs in authentic scientific practice 

The issue of uncontrollable variability in biological systems.  Can we?  Should we consider this?

Joe Redish and Eun-Suk Seo 4/26/11