Spring 2022

This semester Dr. Arnold's BIO 101 class had the opportunity to participate in a cross cultural collaboration with students in France through CLICK (Collaborative Learning for International Capabilities and Knowledge).  My class is an introduction to Biology for non-majors and our partner class in France is comprised of Biology students learning English.  We decided our classes would focus on effective Biology communication and that our final projects would involve students designing effective visual infographics to share information on a topic relevant to Biology.  The students in France would be the "experts" in Biology and my students would be the "experts" in English - each making valuable contributions to the infographic.  Along the way, the students all got to know one another and experience another culture without even getting on an airplane!

Agar art is the process of using bacteria as “paint” on a canvas of agar. Not only does this put the “A” in the acronym STEAM, but it can also be used to analyze different growth properties of the various bacteria in a community. For our projects we utilized a variety of different chromophores (bacteria that produce pigment) that are found in nature and some E. coli that we transfected in class with the genes to produce different pigments. Each student was given the freedom to choose their design, and the bacteria that they wanted to paint with. This class project was inspired by the annual American Society for Microbiology Agar Art Contest - https://asm.org/Events/ASM-Agar-Art-Contest/Home