Students will be able to integrate physics and chemistry concepts into relevant biological contexts.
Throughout my time at Longwood, I have taken many courses that have required an understanding of physical and chemical concepts, and therefore my knowledge of them has increased since taking these courses.
The way that I have been required to understand physical concepts in a biological context was in my comprehensive anatomy and physiology courses. In these classes, it was crucial to understand physics in order to be able to know how the heart works, where oxygenated and deoxygenated blood has come from and where it needs to go, how muscles contract, and how bones move.
The way that I was required to understand chemical concepts in a biological context was with my developmental biology course. Throughout this course, we had to understand how different chemicals altered signaling pathways of different organisms. Certain chemicals are able to turn on or turn off different signaling molecules, which can drastically alter the development of different organisms. I was also required to use my knowledge of chemistry in a presentation in my senior capstone biology course. In this course, each lab group was required to present on an interesting and new topic in biology for 60 minutes. My group’s topic was required to be on cell metabolism and stem cells, so we chose to present a research group’s findings on a new treatment for acute myeloid leukemia. This assignment was helpful to me because it helped me become more confident in long periods of public speaking. It also helped me learn how to communicate a highly complex paper to a group of scientists. I originally thought that our background information needed to be very basic in order for the class to understand the paper. However, following the presentation, I learned that when presenting science to a scientific audience, it is acceptable to challenge them with harder terms and concepts. The link to this presentation is listed below.
Something that required me to use both physical and chemical concepts was the process of gel electrophoresis in my introduction to cell biology and genetics class. Gel electrophoresis is the process of separating DNA, RNA, or proteins in relation to their molecular size. To do this, these molecules are put into an electrical field and allowed to be pulled or repelled based on their charges. We did this early on in my college experience. In my introduction to genetics and cell biology class, we were split into lab groups and prompted to study the microbial diversity of Prince Edward County. We collected various soil samples and ran gel electrophoresis on these samples. Each group identified a strain of bacteria to do their presentation on, and the class complied all of their data into a single e-Portfolio, which is linked below. This project allowed me to explore more of the disciplines that go into the field of biology.
Longwood University’s biology department has truly allowed me to explore the field and its relations to different disciplines and fields. Interdisciplinary studies are something that is very important to Longwood and I think that its biology course requirements exemplify that very well.
Acute Myeloid Leukemia Presentation
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Og2Bmn_du7w02kSRCDdoN3KKRD9Z7z6MERXckxWtYoc/edit?usp=sharing
Microbial Diversity e-Portfolio