Teaching Laboratories

Facilities and Tools for Learning

Constructed in 1969, the J. Edgar Monroe Science Complex houses the Biology Teaching Laboratories, together with our other facilities and offices. Each teaching laboratory has ample space for comfortable and effective learning, houses necessary instruments (e.g., student microscopes, incubators, environmental sampling equipment), materials (e.g., models, living and preserved organisms, vital tissues), and safety equipment. Three laboratories are equiped with video monitors and cameras (attached to microscopes) to demonstrate slides and live preparations to students.. All primary teaching labs are networked to the university's IBM mainframe for access to campus servers and to the world via Internet.

The Biology faculty are currently engaged in planning for substantial renovations to enhance our physical infrastructure. The new facilities will incorporate features to encourage and support active learning and research with a student-centered approach to learning.

Collaborative learning

The physical floorplan of the laboratory classrooms and a dedication by our faculty to involve students in significant practical experiences provide excellent opportunities for collaborative learning in the laboratory and field. With all laboratories situated on a single floor of Monroe Science Complex, together with Biology faculty offices and the Departmental Office, the teaching laboratories are often accessible outside of scheduled class meetings.

Collaborative learning, through small groups of lab partners is strongly encouraged (or required) in all laboratory courses.

Video/Computer assisted learning

Video and computer-assisted instruction has become a major learning tool and is strongly supported in our department. However, these tools are exactly that -- tools -- to be used by inquiring students with the guidance of our faculty. Three of our teaching labs have video camera/monitors that allow instructors to demonstrate living and preserved materials to all students simultaneously.

The use of information technologies, especially the Internet, is a central part to learning in the 21st century.

Microscopy

The light microscope remains one of the fundamental investigative tools of biology. Our laboratories house over 100 compound student microscopes and 50 dissecting microscopes that are used in 8 of our courses -- from freshmen to senior-level. We recently purchased eight phase contrast microscopes for our sophomore Cell & Molecular Biology Laboratory and are pursuing funding to enhance the microscopy and imaging capabilities of the department.

The analysis of images of all sorts -- from the ultrastructure of cells to tissues to whole organisms to ecological landscapes -- is one of the most active areas of basic and applied research in the biological sciences today.

Culturing and caring for living organisms

As biology is the study of living things, it is vitally important to have facilities to support studying organisms, their tissues, and cells. Cell culturing is supported by numerous incubators and environmental chambers housed in a centralized preparation area and in many of the teaching laboratories.

Biohazard hoods provide a safe means to culture pathogenic microorganisms. Fruit flies (Drosophila) are propagated in the "fly room" for genetics courses. A new greenhouse (replacing an older structure) supports the care of plants that are studied in several courses.

As important as computer simulations and mathematical models are, life cannot be appreciated without observing and studying it in vivo.

Physiological and Biochemical tools

The study of living systems -- cells to whole organisms -- is a most important part of any modern Biology program. Teaching and research spectrophotometers and electrophoretic systems support biochemical applications that are a central focus of physiology, microbiology, and cell biology courses. A dedicated cluster of Macintosh workstations support MacLab physiological software that allow data collection, analysis, and presentation tools for physiological laboratory exercises. Isolation of cellular components vital to many biological disciplines is supported by cell fractionation collectors, analytical, high speed and ultracentrifuges that are housed in several teaching laboratories and in the BSI Lab

Field and Environmental Biology

The department has excellent facilities and equipment for learning firsthand about Nature. Two 12-passenger vans, a 17 ft Boston Whaler, and an airboat provide the means to take students into the field. Local field trips are regularly mounted in many of our majors' and non-majors' courses. Environmental sampling and collecting equipment allow students to investigate local aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Faculty and students have active field study sites in Mississippi River delta, Pearl River System, Lake Pontchartrain Basin, Florida Everglades, Gulf Coastal wetlands, and the tropical forests of the Yucatan peninsula.

The department's affiliation with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) provides our students with access to a state-of-the-art Marine Science Field Station in Cocodrie, LA. (LUMCON)

Biodiversity and organismal biology

The understanding of organismal diversity and the relationships of living things is fundamental to the study of biological systems. Laboratory courses that focus on biodiversity are supported by preserved collections of specimens that include a good representation of major groups. Included here are fine teaching collections of vertebrates, many invertebrate taxa, vascular and non-vascular plants, fungi, and single-celled eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Microscopic slide collections of unicellular organisms and of tissues from multicellular organisms are used extensively in core and elective courses.

Molecular genetics

Today, the study of genetics is not limited to examining the offspring of breeding experiments. The development of molecular genetic tools has allowed an explosive growth of new studies in biology. These new tools have impacted virtually every area of biology from the molecular basis of gene expression to the evolutionary relationship of organisms. Study of DNA, proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids is strongly integrated into our courses in cell and molecular biology, as well as organismal biology.

About half of our faculty use molecular genetic methods in their research, which spans a huge range of topics -- from gene expression in development to molecular parasitology to molecular genetics of cancer to population and evolutionary genetics.

A centralized facility (BSI Lab) and equipment housed in several teaching laboratories support these applications.