INDEPENDENT PROJECTS

GENERAL EXPECTATIONS

Students will work in pairs or groups of 3 (or individually with intructor permission)

Indpendent projects for this course are VERY open to student creativity.
For examples from last year see my teaching page Indenpendent Projects.

Rather than a grant proposal we will use a "Project Management" strategy to organize independent projects.
The detailed description is available to download. and templates (planning and organizing) to be used.
Due dates for each phase of the organization process are:
Oct. 15th & 16th PLANNING Statement of Work Define Participants. PM_TEMPLATE
         see examples: ex1 ex2 ex3 ex4 ex5 ex6 ex7
Oct. 29th & 30th ORGANIZING graphical timeline      EXCEL_TEMPLATE          Powerpoint_TEMPLATE
Nov. 26th REVIEW AND REVISE
Dec 4th Title, Authors and Abstract due by email at noon
Dec TBA -- POSTER PRESENTATION present your poster visit other posters (3 evaluations)
Dec TBA -- ASSESSMENT (of your own project) due after poster session by email.

Equipment available includes:

temperature controlled incubators
audio recording equipment
video recording equipment
spotting scope
laptop computers for Jwatcher studies
general molecular biology equipment
anything used during course work

Arrangements can be made for repeated access to the zoo.

Appropriate animals include:

Any wild animals easily acccessible for field observations.
Any animals used during previous labs are available.
Any Drosophila mutant or strain availble at the Bloomington Stock Center (needs 3-4 weeks advance notice)
House crickets (let us know early, they are often not mature when ordered)
Goldfish, Zebrafish,
Tanganyikan cichlids available in the Renn Lab (Astatotilapia burtioni)
Wild caught sticklebacks from the canyon.

TO BE EVALUATED

Poster Presentation and Participation at Poster Session (template1, template2, general hints).
Project Management documentation.
Lab Notebooks (one per group is sufficient, though individuals must note their own contributions clearly)