Digital Options for Teaching Tiny Earth Labs and Activities

Compiled by Sarah Miller, Tiny Earth Executive Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Created March 12, 2020. Last updated March 19, 2020.

Short URL to this doc: https://go.wisc.edu/qe5942

This information is also posted online at https://tinyearth.wisc.edu/digital-labs-and-activities/

#spreadfactsnotgerms

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, many institutions are pivoting to online and digital instruction. There are many resources available for moving class lectures, assignments, and assessments online (examples here here, and here). However, wet labs, CUREs, and inquiry-based activities such as those in Tiny Earth require additional thought and input. We are actively compiling resources and ideas for you to consider using as you reconfigure your inquiry-based Tiny Earth labs. If you have ideas to share, please send them to sarah.miller@wisc.edu or @sarahmilleruw on twitter for consideration to be added to this list.

General Resources for Digital Science and Online Labs

Specific Ideas for Digital Tiny Earth Labs or Activities
**Not all of these are open to the public. If you are interested in becoming a Tiny Earth Partner Instructor (TEPI), you can apply for the training at https://go.wisc.edu/y6482r. For more info on Tiny Earth: https://tinyearth.wisc.edu/

  • Lab activity suggestions and resources:
  • Tiny Earth video library of labs from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
  • Demonstrate the techniques and use pictures/videos to document the results, then have students analyze the results. Examples: Calculating CFUs, holding plates up to the camera, taking pictures or video of results.
  • Use HHMI Biointeractive for virtual labs about bacterial identification.
  • Tiny Earth database activity suggestions and resources:
  • Tiny Earth public database of antibiotic-producing isolates from soil (studentsourced!)
  • Activity ideas
  • Phylogeny activity suggestions and resources:
  • Beginner-level phylogeny/tree-building resources
  • Soil activity suggestions and resources:
  • SoilWeb: An online soil survey browser
  • Genomic activity suggestions and resources:
  • Tiny Earth Partner Instructors (TEPIs) speaking on video about COVID-19

General Ideas for Digital Labs or Activities (including CUREs)

  • Biology/Microbiology:
  • Film data collection and have students score videos or work with previously collected data using online dissections. Focus on data analysis and write-up where possible. Microbiology example: Have students request a particular microbiology test, then provide students with a picture of a "result plate" of the test they requested so they'll have to analyze the data and decide the next test. They just won't be streaking their own plates.
  • General STEM:
  • If students are working on a common project, the instructor can carry it out and provide data to students
  • Use online modules that are similar / allow for inquiry, such as https://basilbiochem.github.io/basil/  
  • Give students prior datasets to collect and analyze
  • If students are doing separate projects, have them write them up to share anonymously with the class and then vote for the top choice that the instructor carries out and shares data with the class to analyze and draw conclusions
  • Shift to writing proposals for what they could do based on review and synthesis of literature
  • The Ohio State University: Keep Teaching-Virtual Labs

General Open Educational Resources (OER) and Guidance for Online Teaching

Science-specific Educational Resources (including COVID-19 content)

Recommendations for Lab Group Operations

Accessibility Considerations 

Twitter/Instagram Accounts

  • @tinyearthnet
  • @curenet1
  • @erindolan1
  • @sarahmilleruw
  • @globalhighered

Facebook Accounts

This is an ongoing community effort - thank you!

Credit for contributions:

Tiny Earth Partner Instructors (TEPIs), Kris Olds, Suzanne Dove, Ana Barral, SABER community, Sydney Thomas, Angelo Kolokithas, Marc Chevrette, Nichole Broderick, Jennifer Heinritz, Leanna Wilson, Monica Hall-Woods, Enid Gonzalez-Orta, Kristin Labby, Katherine Maloney, Deepa Acharya, John Martin, Timmo Dugdale, Tomorrow’s Professor / Rick Reid, Nancy Ruggeri, Heather Bleakley, Steel Wagstaff, Hans Wildschutte, Jo Handelsman, Todd Kelson, Abha Ahuja, Heather Taft, Davida Smyth, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and many more. Please refer to the direct  links above for full attribution of each resource.

Please let me know if I missed anyone or if corrections need to be made to the content.

This document of shared ideas and the spirit of inquiry and discovery it supports is dedicated to Heather Allen, who passed away on March 7, 2020. She was one of the good ones.

Postscript - some humor

  • Circulating now: 9 months from now the coronial generation will be born; 13 years later the first quaranteens will appear.
  • WHO stated that dogs cannot contract/transmit Covid19 and let them out of quarantine. To be clear, W.H.O let the dogs out!