Learning to think like a (creative) scientist: To understand how to think like a scientist, we will study how scientists describe their experiments in original research articles. We will focus specifically on classic research papers that teach the ‘art and logic’ of experimental design. What is experimental design? In your science classes, you’ve been introduced to the idea of ‘experimental constants’, ‘variables’ and ‘controls’. What is also very important to successful research is to ask the right questions, questions that are interesting and practical (e.g. answerable). It is also important to learn to observe and ‘see’ a set of facts clearly.

Understanding advanced technology: Science goes forward hand-in-hand with the development of new technological tools. By analogy, if you want to build a house, you would make a plan that considers what tools you have. Sometimes, if you want to build something, you have to invent the tools to do it. Similarly, the design of an experiment is based on the technological tools that can be used. Often researchers invent new technologies in order to answer their biological questions. You will see this clearly in the experiments we will do. Our readings and discussions will emphasize the connections between research tools and progress in understanding Nature.

Experiencing the excitement and frustration of research: We plan to do experiments for which the results are not known. That means we don’t know what we might discover or even whether the experiments will work, in a technical sense. Getting experiments to work often comes after attempts that fail and repetition (with adjustments). Since we have a limited amount of time to work in the lab., we can hope to make an exciting discovery but must always be prepared for frustration and having to try again on another day.