Biology 114: Honors Biology for the Teaching Profession

I took Biology 114 with Dr. Lehman during my fall semester in 2019. I enjoyed this class because Biology is my favorite branch of science and this course was geared towards the teaching profession.

Throughout this class, I learned about various biological concepts in order to have a full understanding of Biology in order to be able to teach this subject in the future. One thing that I enjoyed in this class is that we had a lab every week that directly related to what we were learning so we were able to build upon what we had learned during lecture with hands-on experiences. Many of these labs could also be used as is or altered to be used in elementary classrooms, which was very beneficial for my classmates and I as we are all going into education.

Besides learning biological concepts, this class allowed me to work with almost all of my classmates on a variety of assignments. We would frequently work with our classmates to complete labs or to complete projects and presentations, including creating lessons that could possibly be used in out classrooms in the future. One of the major assignments for this course was our presentation for the research showcase. The poster “Comparison of the Effects of Common Fertilizers on Plant Growth” that my group and I presented during the showcase is attached below. For this presentation, my group and I looked at the effects of four different fertilizers as well as a control group  on the growth of sunflower and cucumber plants. We collected data and conducted research throughout the semester. This presentation also had a focus on an elementary classroom. We used our research to determine what would be best to be used if fifth grade students were conducting this same experiment or a similar one. From our research, we determined that the cucumber plant should be used with the same four fertilizers. We also stated that we believe that in a fifth grade class, the class should be split into five groups and each group is responsible for one of the fertilizers or a control group. The class can then work together to collect and combine their data. I enjoyed this project and research because I was able to conduct an experiment to not only see the results of the experiment but also how this experiment could best be altered for elementary aged students.