Lab syllabus

General:  No smoking, eating or drinking in the lab.  Please be on time.   Your lab partners depend on your input and assistance with the exercises.  We hate to be interrupted after lab has begun.

Read the lab manual and any notes posted on the web before coming to class, so you can work quickly and more effectively.  Use your lecture text and the Atlas of the Human Skeleton to prepare yourself for the model work you will conduct in class.  

Safety in the lab:  No sandals, shorts, or open-toed shoes will be permitted in lab at any time.  You will use toxic and caustic chemicals (preserving fluids, weak acids and bases) and should exercise caution when pouring or working with these.  The hazards of all chemicals will be explained before each use.  When dissecting preserved animal materials, you are required to wear goggles .  Chemistry goggles are fine, or you can buy a pair at the bookstore.    For your protection, we also require that you wear gloves during dissections -- non-latex gloves are used exclusively.   Be especially careful using sharp dissection tools--in biology labs, the most common injury is a self-inflicted laceration, something we hope you will avoid by working carefully while dissecting.  NOTE:  All these safety requirements above apply equally to regularly scheduled lab sessions and “open-lab” review sessions.  Teaching assistants and faculty instructors alike will have the authority to ask uncooperative students to leave the lab.

Evaluation:  

• Two practical lab exams will be held, see syllabus below.

• In lecture, on day 1 of each cycle, I will make an assignment that is due at the beginning of your scheduled lab session the following cycle-- late assignments will not be accepted since the purpose of these is to help you prepare yourself for lab.  These assignments can be written questions, virtual experiments from the Physioex CD that accompanies the lab manual, or assignments from your lab manual.  Written assignments not on the lab manual will be posted on this page.

• During some lab sessions you will also be given an exercise that you must complete on an individual basis before leaving the lab.  The combination of each pre-lab and in-lab exercise counts for 10 points.

• Two written lab exercises will deal with the cardiovascular and respiratory adjustments to exercise lab and the control of urine formation lab.  You will work on this exercise in groups of two students and turn in one copy per group.

Tentative Schedule

** Only the major readings are listed in this syllabus;  at the beginning of each cycle a set of lab guidelines will be posted in the lab materials page outlining all required and optional preparation tools for that specific lab; lab manual (LM).