Meeting Abstract
We developed an interdisciplinary, discovery-based teaching laboratory that treats students as researchers. Our quantitative, biomechanics teaching laboratory allows students the chance to move toward original scientific discovery every week. Teams of biology and engineering students rotate to a new station each week to conduct experiments using state-of-the-art research equipment. Each week a team has two three-hour class periods. In the first period, students become familiar with equipment and are given a problem thought to be solvable. We intentionally design the laboratory so results do not meet student expectations, often because they must consider another parameter. In the second class period, a team uses the same station to design their own experiment to further investigate the problem. This approach scaffolds the students through the stages of critical thinking as described by Perry (1970) and demonstrates the value of both disciplines working in concert toward novel discovery. Laboratory stations include the locomotion energetics, mechanics and control of rapid running in insects and lizards, material testing of plants and insect muscle, PIV of hummingbird flight in a wind tunnel, fluid mechanics on physical models in a water flume, and flow measurements in nature. Teams have a three-week period at the end of the course to conduct an original research project that can be published. We measured students’ interdisciplinary research skills of participation, communication, and critical thinking during the course over several years through surveys and student interviews. Findings support a model for interdisciplinary discovery-based instruction that contributes to the knowledge of how students learn to be interdisciplinary researchers.
