PINE BARRENS ECOLOGY

Spring 2022 I enrolled in Pine Barrens Ecology with aquatic ecologist Dr. Nathan Ruhl.  This was the first time a similar course has been offered in Rowan in the past ~30 years! If you were to ask Dr. Ruhl, he would explain that this course is a landscape ecology class with the pine barrens as its "muse". We also had the opportunity to have some bonus adventures such as macroinvertebrate sampling at Whitesbog, hiking to a severely burned area in Wharton State Forest, visiting the pine plains, and an Atlantic white cedar swamp at Shinn's Branch. We were required to complete six 6 site reports detailing the habitat characterization geology/physiology, hydrology, water quality, biological species, and threats of each site. 

Field Trip Locations
1. Elmer Lake Wildlife Management Area
2. Scotland Run Park
3. Batsto Village
4. Wharton State Forest burn site
5. Historic Whitesbog
6. West Pine Plains, Bass River State Forest
7. Shinn's Branch, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest
8. Menantico Wildlife Management Area
Picture
A field trip to the West Pine Plains or the "pygmy pines". Here the native pitch pine trees only grow to heights of 8 feet at maturity.

MYCOLOGY

Intro to Mycology taught by Dr. Jennifer Oberle examined the morphology, taxonomy, physiology, and ecology of fungi. This was one of the most fascinating courses I've taken in my undergraduate studies which gave me a whole new appreciation and respect for Kingdom Fungi. The two main projects in this course included a group research project and a macrofungi specimen collection requiring collecting, preserving, and identifying 10 fungal fruiting bodies and identifying them to the species level.

BIOLOGY SKILLS & METHODS
(General Biology III)

This 200-level course focused on a variety of skills that I've continued to use in many upper level biology courses:
  • experimental design
  • primary and secondary literature review
  • scientific writing
  • library research
  • data collection & analysis
  • peer review
  • laboratory skills

Data Analysis: Threespine Stickleback

Data Analysis: Saccharomyces cerevisiae

GLOBAL ECOLOGY (General Biology IV)

This 200-level course continued to build upon the foundation I gained in Gen Bio III: Biology Skills & Methods. We investigated how organisms interact with each other and their environment through reviewing primary scientific literature  and hands on lab activities with an emphasis on experimental design. Through lecture we also explored concepts including: (i) how energy is transferred through trophic levels, (ii) how competition/predation affect abundance/distribution, and (iii) what population growth looks like.

MICROBIOLOGY

This course was offered in a hybrid format  in Spring 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lectures were online and our weekly lab sessions were thankfully in person! This course was one of the most challenging but also the most fun I think I've ever experienced in a lab class! In the very beginning of the semester collected mud from a freshwater habitat and created a Winogradsky column to study and observe the natural gradients of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria.

Identification of an Unknown Bacterium
 Each of us students was assigned a different "unknown" bacterium which we were responsible for studying and keeping viable and uncontaminated. A series of 23 tests were performed on my unknown bacterium - see below several photos and click the link to view the results table from my lab report. I also created a dichotomous key illustrating the quickest way to identify my specimen - which I successfully determined to be Citrobacter freundii.

ADVANCED GENETICS

This course 300-level biology elective was offered at RCBC and provided me with an in-depth background in all areas of
Mendelian, molecular, population, and evolutionary genetics.
Lab assignments and  experiments:
  • Review and practicing micropipette tecniques and reagent preparation
  • Analyzing Lambda DNA via gel electrophoresis to identify restriction enzyme fragments
  • Crime scene DNA analysis using PCR on a single locus
  • Performing genetic transformation of bacteria using PGLO plasmid
  • Extracting and examining DNA sequences in plants to detect possible GMOs
  • Genetic analysis of cancer using three methods

Genetic Disease Presentation Project:

SPECIAL TOPICS IN BIOLOGY: Diet, Health & Human Evolution

Completed Summer 2022.


PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Completed Fall 2022.