BIOL 1103 Lab: Scientific Method for Beginners and Lab Procedures

Top Hat Course Registration and Integration

Students are required to join two distinct Top Hat courses for BIOL 1103 Lab: the POLLING course and the CONTENT course. The POLLING course is accessed using a specific Join Code provided by the lab instructor. To join, students navigate to http://app.tophat.com/e/######, replacing the hashes with their provided code. This course is utilized at the beginning of every class session to review previous material, check preparation for the current lab, and build community. While individual poll questions are not graded for correctness, participation is mandatory and contributes to the student's participation grade. Instructors are reminded to erase Join Codes from whiteboards after class ends.

The CONTENT course must be joined prior to the POLLING course. The registration path involves accessing the iCollege course for the LAB, selecting ‐Content‐ from the top navigation bar, clicking the ‐Top Hat‐ module on the left, and following the internal Top Hat link. Students whose free trials have expired are required to purchase Top Hat. The CONTENT course serves as the platform for digital lab manual worksheets, which include procedures and questions to be completed during the lab session.

Attendance, Participation, and Etiquette Rubric

Student performance in the lab is evaluated based on a detailed rubric covering Attendance, Punctuality, Participation, Attention, and Etiquette. For the Summer $2026$ term (BIOL1103L/BIOL1104L), the maximum possible credit for the first half of the semester is $30$ and $25$ for the second half. This constitutes $52.75\%$ and $47.25\%$ of the total grade respectively.

Attendance and Punctuality: Students earn $5$ points for each attended or excused lab. No more than $3$ labs may be excused throughout the semester, and excusals must follow syllabus policies as they are not automatic. Students are marked absent if they arrive more than $30\text{ minutes}$ after the lab begins. Entry is denied if safety clothing and shoe rules are not met. There are no makeup labs. Excessive absences or lateness can lead to involuntary withdrawal. Full credit requires being present for all labs, never being late, and never leaving early.

Participation in Class: Full credit ($6$ points) is awarded to students who reliably engage in hands-on activities, participate in directed discussions with peers, answer instructor questions, and contribute equally with lab partners. Students must also follow all clean-up procedures and arrive on time for polling. Partial credit ($4$ or $2$ points) is given for inconsistent or low participation. No credit is given for nonsense or irrelevant responses or those submitted from outside the classroom.

Paying Attention: This aspect measures the unauthorized use of phones, chatting during presentations, or wearing headphones. Full credit ($6$ points) is for reliable attention. Partial credit ($4$ or $2$ points) is for inconsistent or very low attention. No credit ($0$ points) is given if the student almost never pays attention.

Attitude and Etiquette: Students must maintain a respectful and polite demeanor toward peers, instructors, and TA apprentices. This includes office hours and email communication. Negative tones, inappropriate comments, or violating lab rules (e.g., eating or drinking in the lab) are prohibited. Scoring for this section is deducted per instance of poor etiquette: Full credit for always good attitude, partial for one or two instances, and no credit ($0$ points) for three or more instances, which also requires informing course supervisors.

Academic Dishonesty and Absence Policies

Strict academic integrity rules apply to all During Lab questions. Students must compose their own individual responses. Sharing drawings, photos, or specific responses with a lab partner is considered academic dishonesty, with the exception of raw numerical data collected as a team. The use of ChatGPT or unauthorized web searches for lab questions will result in a procedural penalty of a zero score for the entire During Lab assignment, and may lead to formal charges of academic dishonesty.

Regarding absences, students must not log into Top Hat to perform assignments or polls if they are not physically present. If a student is officially excused, the During Lab assignment is excused. If the student is unexcused, the grade for that assignment is zeroed out.

Lab Objectives and the Scientific Method

By the completion of the lab, students should be able to define science, discuss its characteristics, and identify the steps of the scientific method. The scientific method is a general guide used to solve problems and initiate investigations by describing how science works, though not all discoveries follow a rigid flowchart.

Students will learn to:

1. Make observations, ask questions, and construct testable hypotheses.
2. Identify independent, dependent, and controlled variables.
3. Design and conduct controlled experiments and make outcome predictions.
4. Interpret collected data and create graphs to summarize results.
5. Discuss the basic biology of pill bugs and human handedness.
6. Evaluate the influence of independent variables on response variables.

Variables, Hypotheses, and Predictions

A variable is defined as any factor that can change within an experiment. The Independent variable is the factor being tested or manipulated by the researcher. The Dependent variable (also known as the response variable) is the factor being measured in response to changes in the independent variable. Controlled variables are factors held constant across all groups because they are not the primary interest of the study (e.g., keeping temperature identical in both control and experimental groups to ensure it does not interfere with the results).

A hypothesis is a potential explanation meant to answer a scientific question. To be valid, it must be both testable and falsifiable. A single hypothesis can be tested by many different experimental designs. A prediction is a specific expectation of the results for the dependent variable based on the experiment. For example, if the question is ‐Why do students fall asleep in class?‐ and the hypothesis is ‐Students fall asleep because the classroom is warm,‐ the experiment would compare sleep counts in normal versus warm rooms. The prediction would be that more students fall asleep in the warmer room. In this case, the independent variable is the room temperature and the dependent variable is the number of sleeping students.

Scientific Theory and Evidence

In science, the word ‐theory‐ does not mean a ‐guess.‐ It is a well-supported explanation of the natural world that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation. Theories are hypotheses backed by a ‐mountain of evidence‐ and are generally agreed upon by experts. Examples include Cell Theory (all life is made of cells), Evolutionary Theory, and the Germ Theory of Disease (microbes cause certain diseases). Scientists remain open to changing these understandings if new evidence arises.

Case Study: Human Handedness

Handedness is the general preference for using one hand over the other for manual tasks. The dominant hand provides greater accuracy and efficiency. While often categorized as ‐right-handed‐ or ‐left-handed,‐ manual abilities vary by task. Approximately $1 \text{ in } 10$ individuals are left-handed, while slightly fewer are ‐mixed-handed‐ or ambidextrous (equally skilled with either hand). In lab activities, students observe mobile game scores to test if the hand used (independent variable) influences the performance/score (dependent variable).

Case Study: Pill Bug Biology

Pill bugs, commonly known as ‐rollypollys,‐ are land-dwelling crustaceans and terrestrial isopods. They are harmless, do not bite, and curl into a ball when they feel threatened. They must be treated gently. Students investigate pill bug preferences by asking why they gather in specific forest floor locations. The working hypothesis is that pill bugs prefer wet environments over dry ones. During the lab, students manipulate moisture levels to observe the resulting influence on pill bug location preference.

Student Checkout and Station Reset

Before leaving the lab, students must complete several steps to ensure full participation credit. All questions in the During Lab Top Hat worksheet must be answered; these worksheets close $10\text{ minutes}$ after class ends. Students must also push in their stools and have their station inspected by an instructor before signing out.

The Student Lab Station Bin must be reset with the following items:

• $1$ petri dish with lid
• $1$ $2$-chamber apparatus with lids
• $1$ small paint brush
• $1$ squeeze bottle of water
• $1$ piece of dark paper

Teaching Assistant (TA) Responsibilities

TAs are responsible for the final reset of the lab facilities. They must physically check all $12$ bins, ensuring all pill bugs are returned to the terrarium and wood pieces are neatly stacked. TA stations must have writing utensils returned to boxes and pill bugs returned to source containers. Attendance records (both paper and digital) must be finalized.

A critical safety and animal care instruction for TAs involves the ‐wounded‐ arthropod container. The last TA of the day must place the wounded arthropod container in the refrigerator, and the first TA of the next day must retrieve it. TAs are strictly instructed: DO NOT REFRIGERATE HEALTHY ARTHROPODS.