An at-home laboratory in plant biology designed to engage students in the process of science

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a transition to remote delivery of courses that lack immersive hands-on research experiences for undergraduate science students, resulting in a scientific research skills gap. In this report, we present an option for an inclusive and authentic, hands-on research experience that all students can perform off-campus. Biology students in a semester-long (13 weeks) sophomore plant physiology course participated in an at-home laboratory designed to study the impacts of nitrogen addition on growth rates and root nodulation by wild nitrogen-fixing Rhizobia in Pisum sativum (Pea) plants. This undergraduate research experience, piloted in the fall semester of 2020 in a class with 90 students, was created to help participants learn and practice scientific research skills during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the learning outcomes associated with this at-home research experience were: (1) generate a testable hypothesis, (2) design an experiment to test the hypothesis, (3) explain the importance of biological replication, (4) perform meaningful statistical analyses using R, and (5) compose a research paper to effectively communicate findings to a general biology audience. Students were provided with an at-home laboratory kit containing the required materials and reagents, which were chosen to be accessible and affordable in case students were unable to access our laboratory kit. Students were guided through all aspects of research, including hypothesis generation, data collection, and data analysis, with video tutorials and live virtual sessions. This at-home laboratory provided students an opportunity to practice hands-on research with the flexibility to collect and analyze their own data in a remote setting during the COVID-19 pandemic. This, or similar laboratories, could also be used as part of distance learning biology courses.

Keywords: at‐home experiment; course‐based research; remote learning; undergraduate research experience.

FIGURE 1

Contents of the at‐home laboratory kit provided to students in Fall 2020. Postage paid envelope for mailing nodules harvested following the at‐home experiment is not pictured. Photo: Laura J. Schnell

FIGURE 2

A student at‐home laboratory set up from Fall 2020. Little Marvel seedlings photographed 14 days post‐shoot emergence from soil. Photo: Laura J. Schnell

FIGURE 3

Distribution of student scores (%) in three assessments directly applying the quantitative reasoning bioskill (Clemmons et al., 2020) performed by students over the course of the semester (September–December 2020). The “Visuals” and “Methods” assessment were completed early in the semester (end of September and early October, respectively) and the “Report” was completed in December