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	Experimental Approaches in Plant Physiology 1. Plants and Communities Autumn Quarter, 2005 last revision: 21 November, 2005
H&CS, Plant Path, Plant Biol. 604.01 4 Credits Instructors:
Dr. Jim Metzger Room 348 Howlett Hall ( 292-3854 (E-mail)		Dr. David Barker Room 226 Kottman Hall ( 247-6258 (E-mail)
Teaching Assistants: Luis da Cunha, 35Kottman Hall,( 247-7101, (E-mail) Office hours: a) call-in and take your chance, or b) call or E-mail for an appointment Class List Purpose of the Course This course is designed to acquaint students with experimental and instrumental approaches to the study of physiological processes and their implications at whole-plant and plant-community scales. Organization Class meets Monday and Wednesday 1:00 to 3:48 (and additional hours as required) Usually we'll meet Howlett-Greenhouse 117, but will also be working at Waterman Farm, Chadwick and the Howlett Greenhouse The website for this course resides at: http://hcs.osu.edu/hcs604 Objectives Participation in this course will increase your ability to: Formulate objectives and hypotheses to guide your research Use appropriate instrumentation to obtain reliable data relating to the growing environment of plants and whole plant functions (click for list of instruments). Understand the principles of selected instrumentation well enough to determine critically the precautions and conditions under which reliable data can be obtained. Keep records of laboratory work that satisfy scholarly criteria and provide enough documentation for others to repeat the work if necessary Select appropriate format for display of experimental data Critically evaluate data and draw conclusions to guide further inquiry Use information resources to find material relating to specific research interests Communicate research ideas and results to others, orally and in writing. Approach There are three areas of activity: classroom instruction measurements of plant community attributes in the field greenhouse measurements of several crops under different environmental conditions Each area will be introduced with a review of the significance of the subject, the underlying physiology and ecology and the available techniques. Students will then work on gathering their own data from the experiments (with guidance from the instructors and TA). This will occur both in the scheduled lab time and in arranged time as necessary. Follow-up sessions will be devoted to each of the areas of activity to review data and discuss its analysis, presentation and interpretation. Lab Notebooks Each student is required to keep a laboratory notebook describing the work done during the quarter. The notebook should contain: 1) the purpose of each experiment, 2) materials and methods, 3) the data or results of the experiment, and 4) conclusions or comments arising from the experiment. Data should be entered in lab books as it is obtained. There should be enough detail to keep track of what was done without having to rely on memory and so that someone else could repeat the work without further instruction. Notebooks will be checked at least 3-times during the quarter to see if they are up to date. These checks will count for 30% of the final grade (10% per check). suggestions for keeping a lab notebook - by Dr D. Bauer Reports Each week a report will be required. This report should present and analyze one aspect of the data you collected. A report will typically comprise a figure or table (with appropriate labels and captions), 100 words describing the Method (i.e. what you did), 100 words describing the main Result (i.e. what you got), 100 words of Discussion and interpretation (i.e. what it means) and at least 1 relevant reference. Each report will be due at the first lab of the following week. Grading Assignments will contribute to final grade as follows: 1 Laboratory notebook (3 checks) 30% (10% each) 2 Reports (9) 45% 3 'Participation' 25% Grades will be determined as follows: 93 - 100% = A 87 - 89% = B+ 77 - 79% = C+ 67 - 69% = D+ 90 - 92% = A- 83 - 86% = B 73 - 76% = C 63 - 66% = D 80 - 82% = B- 70 - 72% = C- 0-62% = E
Other points 1) Disability. Any student who feels they may need specific accomodation based on the impact of a disability may contact either of the instructors privately to discuss their need. We rely on the Office for Disability Services for assistance in verifying the need for accommodations and developing accommodation strategies. If you have not previously contacted the Office for Disability Services, we encourage you to do so. 2) Attendance. Class attendance is voluntary and students can (and may be required to) work outside scheduled class hours, however, not all the curriculum can be found on the website or any other location and attendance at class is recommended. Instructors can not guarantee to make up material for students missing class. 3) Academic misconduct. Work in lab notebooks and the final report that is submitted for grading should be your own. The field report may be submitted jointly, however contributions to this project should be equal. Any use of material from other sources (class members, literature or world-wide-web) should be cited. 4) For ALL assignments, students have the opportunity to submit and revise their work until the due date. Assignments not turned in by the due date will loose 10% maximum credit per late day - NO EXCEPTIONS.

 

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