1.4 Analyze critically and apply the major principles of organismal biology.
The biology core curriculum at Longwood University requires several classes for all biology students, after the freshman introduction classes are completed, there are three required pillars that cover three major fields of biology. Each student is required to complete one course in each pillar. One of the pillars is organismal biology. I enrolled in two semesters of Anatomy and Physiology for this pillar and unfortunately do not have physical evidence, but I can describe my experiences in which I gained a great amount of knowledge of organismal biology.
Fetal Pig Dissection
In the first semester of anatomy and physiology, I got do dissect a fetal pig. I was paired up with a lab partner and we removed and identified all major organs and systems. I had been used to working with cellular level or molecular level labs so this full organism dissection gave me an experience different from what I had been used to.
ABO Typing
In anatomy and physiology part two, we got to practice ABO typing to discover our own blood type. We pricked our fingers and used the antibodies to figure out our blood type.
Isolation, Purification, and Characterization of Myoglobin
In biochemistry, we conducted a lab where we extracted myoglobin from hamburger meat. We oxidized, reduced, and purified the myoglobin through size-exclusion chromatography. The purpose of this was to find the spectroscopic differences between myoglobin that is reduced and myoglobin that is oxidized. I wrote my findings in the form of a lab report with figures to support the data. We used logger lite to analyze the data.