Recent advances in laboratory automation and digitization require a teaching strategy for undergraduate students that is inclusive of skills in these areas so that students can be prepared to work within the modern laboratory. Future scientists will need training in coding, microcontrollers, on-demand manufacturing, and robotics. With this in…

A material commonly known as Flubber, with properties that are excellent for teaching about glaciers, has been widely used in geosciences education. Yet, the original recipe contains borax, which has health risks that should be avoided. A new recipe is shared containing low-cost, readily available ingredients that produces a reformulated Flubber…

Laboratory exercises for undergraduate biochemistry students are described in which changes in sugar content during fermentation of the trendy beverage kombucha are analyzed by three methods: thin layer chromatography, a 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid assay, and a standard commercial blood glucose meter. Each of the three analyses can be completed in a…

Volumetric titrations are an accurate and precise analytical method, which explains their use in industrial and research settings and their inclusion in senior secondary chemistry curricula around the world. Students often have difficulty understanding the intricacies of titrations because they are novices being presented with a long list of…

Teaching the tools and concepts associated with modern physics can often be a daunting and difficult task for secondary science teachers. Classical physics is often perceived as intimidating and complex in its own right. Modern physics addressing quantum phenomena where Newtonian laws break down is even more abstract for learners. However,…

Exposure of organisms to high temperatures and various chemical and physical stressors can cause protein misfolding and aggregation. In turn, this can disrupt the functions of proteins, threatening both development and homeostasis. To overcome this, cells can initiate the highly conserved heat shock (HS) stress response pathway. In eukaryotes,…

Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is the basis for many techniques used in biomedical research. Due to its wide use in molecular sensing, FRET is commonly introduced in many biology, chemistry, and physics courses. While FRET is of great importance in the biophysical sciences, the complexity and difficulty of constructing FRET experiments…

Recombinant protein expression and site-directed mutagenesis of target genes have demonstrated an increasing importance in the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, and medicine. By using the flavodoxin of the model cyanobacterium "Anabaena" sp. PCC 7120 as a laboratory tool, we designed a comprehensive laboratory…

Adsorption of methylene blue and malachite green was carried out using "Luffa cylindrica" sponges as adsorbing material. We provide a very illustrative exercise about the use of common natural materials requiring little preparation to solve environmental tasks in a routine laboratory situation such as using dyes. In addition, the…

In 1827, Robert Brown noticed pollen suspended in water bouncing around erratically. It wasn't until 1905 that Albert Einstein provided an acceptable explanation of the phenomenon (Kac 1947): Brownian motion is the random movement of particles (e.g., pollen) in a fluid (liquid or gas) as a result of collisions with atoms and molecules. Movement of…

The beginning of a new school year can be hectic, but it is an opportune and critical time for teachers, supervisors, administrators, and school systems to establish proper safety procedures and practices. It can be more difficult to correct inappropriate behaviors or unsafe habits later in the year. This is especially true if a safety accident…

For many students, the first--and sometimes only--chance to look through a microscope is in high school biology class, where they observe plant and animal cells up close. Even in college, few students use a microscope for a subject other than biology. Thus, it can be a surprise to learn that microscopes are a primary tool used to understand the…

DNA structure has been leveraged in a variety of facets that allow scientists to perform a range of assays, including ones for identification of species, establishing evolutionary relationships between taxa, or even identifying individuals. Here, we present a DNA barcoding method as practical, hands-on approach that connects several experimental…

A differential scanning calorimeter was used to study homogeneous nucleation of ice from micron-sized aqueous ammonium sulfate aerosol particles. It is important to understand the conditions at which these particles nucleate ice because of their connection to cirrus cloud formation. Additionally, the concept of freezing point depression, a topic…

Design is often accepted as a fundamental aspect of engineering (Dym, et al., 2005). The design process is frequently portrayed as a set of steps. However, the design process is more complex than just a set of steps in a relatively fixed process. The complex nature of design, design thinking, questioning, and decision making is exactly what…