The fourth week of labs covered the aspects of scientific writing. This lab’s beginning lecture went over the parts of a scientific paper, from the title to the references. Then the teaching assistant explained how the first hands-on portion of the lab would go. Each bench of students had an envelope of shuffled parts of a scientific paper. The students had to organize the parts into the proper sequence, demonstrating their understanding of the order of a scientific paper. As they completed, I went from bench to bench, checking their results and helping them reach the right conclusions.
The next portion of the lab dealt with writing and reproducibility. Model kits with small parts were handed out, and the students were instructed to build a simple model and write down the steps. They then had to switch steps with another group to see if they could follow the steps. This greatly impressed upon the students the need for clear and precise steps in writing a scientific paper so that others can follow your steps exactly.
After finishing the model kits, students were then allowed to use laptops to find the online scientific paper designated by the teaching assistant. They had to search the GALILEO online database and then answer questions pertaining to the paper itself. These questions helped point out important characteristics and themes of scientific papers.
Each portion of this week’s lab did a great job of teaching and reinforcing this week’s subject. An actual scientific paper will be assigned with the next week’s lab, so it was important for students to leave lab with a complete understanding. The only addition that could be made is one section of the workbook having abstract and introduction pairs. Many students had difficulty distinguishing between the two, and in this portion they would label which is which and explain why.
The model kit used for creating steps similar to those in an experiment.
