Notes:

YOUR CONTINUED ENROLLMENT IN THIS COURSE INDICATES THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE SYLLABUS AND LAB SCHEDULE FOR BIOLOGY 250.

1. Required Laboratory Materials: Laboratory Exercises in Microbiology, 2nd Edition, by Pollack. The lab manual is available at Textbook Rental; DO NOT WRITE IN THE LAB MANUAL unless you plan to purchase it at the end of the semester.   Students MUST wear a laboratory coat and closed-toe, non-cloth shoes in order to attend lab.
2. Teaching assistants: Melanie Gooch, Kelley Walley (contact information including email addresses will be provided to you in your lab sections)
3. Lab safety: Students are required to follow appropriate lab safety procedures as instructed by the teaching assistants.  (See lab manual.)  In cases of glass breakage or suspected contamination of the lab environment with cultures, notify the lab instructor at once.  Lab protocols will be on file in the laboratory (SL 3218).  Students must read and sign the departmental safety guidelines in class the first week of labs.
4. Attendance: Class attendance in both lecture and laboratory is required.  It is your responsibility as a student to attend lab, to obtain lab handouts from the lab instructor, to obtain notes/results from other students if an absence is absolutely necessary, and to inform yourself of any announcements made in lab.  The instructor assumes that all students are attending lab regularly and ON TIME and that they are therefore fully informed of any announcements made in class.  Please note that lab exercises and quizzes cannot be made up.
5. Academic integrity:  Academic integrity is fundamental to successful learning. Acts of dishonesty are not acceptable and will be dealt with appropriately. All work you turn in for lab must be your own, not copied from someone else. See the lecture syllabus for further information.
6. Make-up labs, lab quizzes, and lab worksheets: Labs may not be made up.  You may be able to observe the results of various exercises in the same week they were inoculated; check with your lab instructor and make arrangements with your lab partners.  Lab quizzes may not be made up. Worksheets must be turned in within a week of the date the worksheet was due even with an excused absence.  Completing all assigned work in lab and taking all lab quizzes is exclusively the student’s responsibility.
7. Lab grades: Your lab grade constitutes 30% of the course grade for Biol. 250.  Grades for the laboratory part of the course (300 pts. total) will be calculated as follows:  
   • Lab Reports (7)--140 pts. (20 pts. each)
   • Quizzes (7)--140 pts. (20 pts. each)
     Note: One report or quiz (NOT both) may be dropped from your lab grade.
   • Techniques--20 pts.
   • Performance and Participation--20 pts.
8. Lab reports: For some exercises you will be required to turn in a lab report.   In several cases, the report will combine two exercises (see schedule above).   Usually the report will be due no more than one week after you complete the exercise and have all the results.   The report will include the answers to the questions in your lab manual, your results for the exercise, and discussion of the results you obtained.  You will need to report the results you observed in and out of lab, explain what those results mean about the organisms you were studying, and discuss the inferences you can make from the observed results.  Keep good notes from your lab instructor's lecture and of what you did in lab.
9. Lab quizzes: Lab quizzes include short answer, fill-in-the-blank, and/or multiple choice questions over the lab lecture notes, lab techniques, and lab results for labs since the last quiz.  Your lab notes and lab manual should be helpful for review.
10. Lab techniques: This grade is based on your acquired ability to perform the basic microbiological techniques you should learn in lab, such as preparing Gram stains, streaking plates for isolation, and using good aseptic technique.
11. Performance and participation: This is based on your behavior, cooperation and responsibility in lab.  A person who exhibits professional behavior, is cooperative, follows instructions carefully, treats his/her cultures, lab partners and instructors respectfully, arrives on time and is prepared for lab, makes sure the assigned work for the day is complete before leaving, and cleans up after himself/herself as instructed should have no deductions from this part of the grade.  People who do not display appropriate behavior in lab may receive a zero for this grade.
12. Obtaining lab results: You are required to read your results from most lab exercises outside class one or two days after your lab meets, depending on the exercise.  If you cannot look at your results at the appropriate time, arrange with your lab partners to save the materials for you to see later (better late than never).