(158d) Biochemical Extractions: Journal of Laboratory Reports

In ChE 337, Biochemical Engineering, the students have a laboratory exercise nearly every week. The experiments include plant and animal cell culture, yeast fermentation, enzyme kinetics, electrophoresis, chromatography, and other techniques. The main purpose of the labs is to familiarize the students with equipment and methods commonly used in biotechnology. Most of the students are chemical engineering majors, who have had two courses where writing laboratory reports and memos is stressed, so they do not need further instruction in scientific written communication. About 20% of the students are either other engineering or science majors.

In developing the course, I considered the goal of the laboratory reports. I wanted to make sure that the students had completed the work, and could interpret the results. But were standard laboratory reports the correct vehicle to assess this? First, most of the students could already write a good technical laboratory report. Second, several of the labs did not require very much analysis; their purpose was to expose the students to a new technique and let them try it out on their own. Third, I did not want to grade twelve laboratory reports from twelve individuals, neither did I want the students to write the reports in groups.

In the end, I had each student create their own technical journal, ?BioChemical Extractions?. The journal included different forms of writing (for example, a short news flash, summary and feature articles, advertisement, letter to the editor, editorial and a book review) which each reported results or experiences from the laboratory exercises. The students handed in the completed journal after the last day of classes.

In written comments from the course evaluations, the students stated that they enjoyed being able to be creative. Their final products exceeded my expectations. They would have preferred due dates throughout the semester, however, instead of having the entire project due at the end. In the future, to make the journal more ?professional?, the students will exchange two or three articles with their peers, for a review process.

For the poster, I anticipate bringing the assignment sheet that describes the project, samples of student work, and a short analysis of student feedback.