Web-based Lab Report 1 - The Sea Urchin Report

Due on the web and hard-copy in my box, Friday November 3, 2000, 5:00 PM

We have just completed two complicated experiments on immunofluorescence of sea urchin embryos. From our results, we can make conclusions both about the process of sea urchin development, and the process of doing immunofluoresence. You will write a report with the goal of describing for your readers what you learned about these two areas - what can you conclude about sea urchin development, and what can you conclude about successful (and unsuccessful) techniques of immunofluorescence.
These pages will stay on the Wheaton website forever. This paper is one of your legacies to future students at Wheaton and other institutions. What have we learned that will help future students when they try this technique here? Said another way, what information would help future experimenters in this course begin where you left off? Scientists build on both the successes and failures of the scientists who experimented before them. Here is your chance to ensure that future students do not repeat our mistakes, but get to advance the field farther by repeating our successes, and making their own new mistakes!
Furthermore, you are setting the standard to which future students will look and strive. Set the bar high. You and the students who come after you will learn more by stretching for a challenging goal.
With these results and reports, we are beginning to build a collection of experimental results which, over the years, could build into publishable stories. The internet has created this possibility where it did not so easily exist before. Therefore, whenever data from our course become part of a story complete enough to publish, we will publish it. Because credit should go where credit is due, everyone who helped reach the conclusions of the paper will be acknowledged. If you have helped advance the work by contributing to its foundation, you'll be included in the paper's acknowledgments. If you've made a significant technical or intellectual contribution to the discovery we present in the paper, either now or in future years, you will be included as a co-author. You know where this data lives, and because our continuing work will be continuously added to the coursepage, keep an eye on it and send us your new ideas. You are welcome to remain a contributing member of the research team for as long as your interest keeps you coming back. I am very excited that something BIG is starting here!

The sea urchin report will be the first of two web-based lab reports we will create in the class. As explained above, it will describe what you learned from our two experiments on immunofluorecence of cytoskeletal elements and DNA in sea urchin embryos. To create it, modify the template I will put on the course webpage by adding your own materials. You can find the template through the link on our course webpage.

Your report will include the following sections: INCLUDED but NOT WRITTEN in this order:

Introduction
Background that a reader should know so that they understand WHAT you did and WHY you did it. It should include an HYPOTHESIS you are testing. It should be well researched and should end with a one paragraph summary of what you did and what you concluded.

Materials and Methods
How was your experiment performed. Describe it in enough detail so that another student can repeat it - from specimen preparation to data collection and analysis.

Results
Here you SHOW and DESCRIBE in prose what you observed. You draw no conclusions about it here. The images are all stored in the 102300 folder in the Uploaded Pics folder on our course webpage. Draw from these images any which tests the hypothesis you want to address. Each image is loaded in three different sizes. The orginal data files are mostly designated "flr" for fluorescein or "hoechst" for Hoechst. These original files are more than 1 Meg each. I have reduced these images for students web use. Most of the webpage-ready images are 600 pixels wide and include this number (or one close to it) in their filename. The 100 pixel wide images are meant to serve as "thumbnail images so that you do not have to copy the BIG files multiple times for multiple student sites. Instead, you can use the thumbnail images as links to their corresponding full-sized images.  

Discussion
Here is where you discuss the MEANING of your results. What conclusions can you draw? Was the hypothesis supported or refuted? How reliable are the results? What went wrong? What should be done next?

References
Cite all references you used. Four at least. Two may be from on-line sources. All must be cited in proper format.