Exciting News! The Biology department was recently awarded an HHMI grant to institute a new class for incoming freshmen, which incorporates research and lecture in a new way. The program, funded by the Science Education Alliance (SEA) in partnership with the National Genomics Research Institute (NGRI), will jump-start interest in undergraduate research in the students’ first year at Calvin and other selected institutions.

So, what will they be doing? Well, twenty students will meet in their own section three times a week for two hours both fall and spring semesters. In this time, they will have regular lectures, but they will also be conducting labwork different from the normal introductory biology course. The students will each go out and collect samples of dirt, water, etc. and then isolate a bacteriophag, and photograph it using a transmission electron microscope. The class will then select one bacteriophage by how rare it is and the quality and quantity of DNA available and send it to NGRI for sequencing. Not only will the students get the experience of collecting, isolating, and studying the genetic sequence of the bacteriophages, the information will also go into the national genomic catalog.

Calvin is part of the second cohort of a dozen schools chosen to test this new, more integrative and interactive biology class for at least the next three years. Our "buddy" school is Hope College, which was part of the first cohort last year. The students will be able to share comments and questions with students at other participating schools via an online wiki, and one or two lucky students will have the honor of traveling to HHMI headquarters in Maryland to present their research with their professors. 

The class itself will be taught by Professors Randall DeJong and John Wertz, who are both excited by the opportunities this new program offers. "The course offers openings to try new teaching techniques and puts Calvin in to a national conversation with other schools," says Professor DeJong. "It’s a new paradigm of lecture and research," Wertz explains. "We won’t know the outcomes of the labs. We’re in the same position as the students. At the same time, it’s a chance for freshmen to do real research in their first year as an undergrad."              by Susananna Lynch, 2010, biochemistry major