Advances in Physiology Education, Vol 263, Issue 6 29-S32, Copyright © 1992 by American Physiological Society
Project labs in physiology
A. P. Woodhull-McNeal
School of Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002.
Projects in which students design and carry out their own experiments can
be a basis for physiology laboratories. A sequence of such projects is
described and evaluated informally. It is argued that these
inquiry-oriented project labs serve to motivate and teach students
important concepts and attitudes about the nature of science and their
ability to participate actively in it. Although physiology laboratories are
a standard part of physiology courses, teachers are not always clear about
the purposes of these activities. At least three categories of purpose seem
important: the conceptual, the motivational, and the technical. As
laboratories are being replaced in some cases by videodisc or computer
simulations, it is important to see which purposes can be served by
simulations and which cannot. Project-based laboratories, even more than
standard laboratories, can serve the technical, motivational, and
conceptual purposes for our laboratory teaching.
