Assignment 1 Due at the start of class September 5th (25 points)
Have a planner/calendar for this semester filled out with :
Assignment 2 Due at the start of class September 12th (25 points)
Complete the learning style inventory. Turn this in with a short summary of your learning style. In class, be prepared to describe your learning style and discusss how this can help you succeed in your classes.
Resources:
Assignment 3 Due at the start of class October 24th (50 points)
Prepare a realistic personal "Four Year Plan" for obtaining a BS in Microbiology. Be prepared to discuss your plan in class. Include summer activities such as internships. Your personal "Plan" may span 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, or whatever — it should be based on your individual situation. Download from the web the course requirements for one other major and one minor. Indicate how your summer activities and minor will enhance your personal or professional development. Hand in all of this material as part of this assignment.
Grading: 4-year plan coursework: 30 points; Summer plans: 5 points; One other major: 10 points; One minor: 5 points. Summer plans and minor must include comments on relevance to your personal or professional development in order to receive full credit.
Resources
Assignment 3.1 Due at the start of class November 14th (50 points)
Create your Plan of Work on MyPack. To create or modify your plan of work, you log in to MyPack Portal. The Plan of Work and Degree Audit are located under Academic Info -> Degree Audit. If you have difficulty modifying your Plan of Work, please view the Plan of Work tutorial. When you're finished, print out a copy of your "Degree Audit/Plan of Work" and the "Semester Layout", and bring these to class to turn in.
Some of you may have little discrepencies in your plan of work - courses you think you'll get transfer credit for yet, classes you've already had that you think might be better moved to another category, &c. If so, make notes of these on the material you turn in.
Assignment 4 Due by midnight November 7th (50 points)
Send me an email describing 3 internships or jobs that are currently posted at CALS Career Services or other locations for Microbiology majors. (25 pts) Sign up with CALS Career Services and post your resume. (25 pts)
From the CALS Career Services main web page, you can go to ePack (look under Quick Links) to create and post your online resume. In case you missed in in class today, use your Unity ID as the Username, then click the "Forgot your password?" link to have the system email a password to you. Use this password (with you Unity ID) to log on to ePack.
To search for internships, go to iCenter from the CALS Career Services main web page (again, under Quick Links). Use "camelplanet" as both the username and password.
Resources
Team Project
Organisms to choose from :
The Good:
Azotobacter or Rhizobium : Nitrogen fixation
Lactobacillus : Probiotics
Saccharomyces : The secret of beer, wine and bread
Penicillium, Streptomyces, &/or Bacillus : Antibiotic production
Rhodococcus : Bioremediation
Thermus : Taq polymerase and PCR amplification
Bacillus thuringensis : Bt, the natural insecticide
Prochlorococcus : The oxygenator of our world
The Bad:
Plasmodium : Malaria
Yersinia pestis : The Black Death
Bacillus anthracis : Anthrax
Rickettsia prowazekii : Typhus
Vibrio cholerae : Cholera
Treponema pallidum : Syphilis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis : Tuberculosis
Mycobacterium leprae : Leprosy
Smallpox virus : Smallpox
HIV : AIDS
Influenza virus : Bird flu
Human papillomavirus : Cervical cancer
Giardia : Moctezuma's RevengeThe Ugly:
Methanosarcina : Sewage treatment
Halobacterium : The Red Herring
Chloroflexus & Synechococcus : Yellowstone Hotsprings mats
Photobacterium : Bioluminescence
Myxobacteria, Physarum, &/or Dictyostellium : Slime molds
Thermplasma : Life in the barbeque
Devil's Disease & Canine Transmissible Venereal Cancer
Riftia symbiont : the giant deep-sea vent tube worm feeder
Buchnera : Aphid symbionts
Agrobacterium : Crown gall & plant biotechnology
... others by permission; just ask!
Part 1 Due September 19th (50 points)
Gather general information about your group’s microorganism. Print out for class 5 sources of information (books, journal articles, web sites, etc.) on your group's topic. Just the name/author of the source is sufficient. Include brief (1-2 sentence) descriptions of information from each source. Go to the MicrobeWiki and see if there is already an entry on your organism present; if so, print out a copy. Turn all of this in at beginning of class period.
Part 2 Due October 10th (50 points)
Research the disease caused by your organism if it is a pathogen, or the natural macroscopic "field guide" appearence and habitat of your organism if it is not. What is or has been the impact your organism on human history or our environment?. How does it do this? How have we harnessed this power, or tried to prevent it? In other words, how do you know it if you see it, and how does its presence influence humans in the present, and historically? Write a 1-2 page report, add images, and create a new page on this organisms in MicrobeWiki. The material for this assignment should go under the "Description & Significance" heading. Be sure to list references. In class, present a 5-10 minute talk. Do both of these as a group, not individually.
Part 3 Due November 7th (50 points)
Research the description of your organism. What kind of organism is it, what does it look like, how is it built, what are its metabolic properties, how can it be identified, what is it's life cycle, &c. Be sure to find out about the genome of this organism. Lastly, find out about its habitat, symbiosis, and contributions to environment. If it is a pathogen, how does this organism cause disease? What are its hosts? In other words, describe the organism from its perspective. Write a 1-2 page report, add images, and post this to MicrobeWiki in the "Cell structure, metabolism & life cycle", "Genome structure", and "Ecology (including pathogenesis)" sections. Be sure to list references. In class, present a 5-10 minute talk. Do both of these as a group, not individually.
Part 4 Due December 5th (50 points)
Choose one particularly interesting aspect of your organism or it's affect on humans or the environment, and find out about this in detail. Write a 1-2 page report, add images, and post this to MicrobeWiki in the "Interesting feature" section. Be sure to include references. In class, present a 5-10 minute talk. Do both of these as a group, not individually.
Comments on group work:
Each group will consist of 6 students. You should introduce yourselves to each other and exchange contact information RIGHT AWAY. My advice is to divide up the work - for example:
I will need to know as soon as possible the names of anyone in your group who will be creating or editing MicrobeWiki pages, so that I can get the administrator (Daniel Barich) to create the appropriate accounts.
Grading:
Each group assignment parts 2-4 will be graded as follows: