"Innovations in Undergraduate Biology Education" effort led by Graham Walker and Dina Gould Halme This Special Seminar Series is sponsored by the Education Group. We have had two very exciting and well-attended seminars so far. When the speakers came to MIT, they spent the day meeting with members of the Education Group and had lunch with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows interested in teaching. Both Jo Handelsman and Graham Hatfull were able to supplement the education-focused aspect of their visits with meetings related to their research.

Jo Handelsman from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Jo gave a talk entitled: "Scientific Teaching: Why and How We Need to Reform Science Education" on Thursday January 29th, 2004. Jo spoke about the data supporting the need for educational reform and some of the projects she has been working on to increase student involvement in their own learning. Jo also performed an exciting experiment demonstrating the icenucleating abilities of a bacteria. Ice Nucleation Video After Jo's visit, two members of Graham Walker's lab made a video demonstrating the ice nucleating abilities of a bacteria (and the inability of a control bacteria to nucleate ice formation). Graham used this video in one of his biochemistry lectures in his Introductory Biology course. More information on lecture enhancements For more information on lecture enhancements made by Graham Walker, please click on the link above.

Graham Hatfull from the University of Pittsburgh. Graham, gave a talk entitled: "Phage Genomics: Adventures in Undergraduate and Pre-College Research Experience" on Thursday April 29th, 2004. Graham spoke about his project that involves high school students in the process of isolating, sequencing, and annotating the genomes of novel bacteriophage. Much of the work is carried out in his laboratory and provides a wonderful opportunity for the members of his lab to gain mentoring experience.