Hunting for beans in the grass using kitchen utensils is not something most students would expect to study in a typical Wesleyan science class. The BIOL 261 ecology class recently performed an exercise to show the co-evolution of predator-prey interactions using kitchen utensils and samples of beans to show the most successful predator-prey relationships and how this affects evolution.
Assitant Professor of Biology Mike Singer, who came to Wesleyan in January of 2004, says the idea for the exercise came from a lab he taught at the University of Arizona, where he received his Ph.D.
“The exercise demonstrates, in an active way for students, a process called co-evolution, by which predator and prey populations evolve by natural selection in response to one another,” Singer said. “For example, co-evolution causes amazing real-world traits like a predaceous cheetah’s ability to run 70 mph and an escaping gazelle’s ability to run nearly as fast and jump long distances. I think the exercise was successful because the students seemed to like it, but pedagogically I can’t say for sure yet because I haven’t given the exam.”
Students were responsible for retrieving different types of beans, such as pinto, black, white, and lentil, using spoons, knives, or forks.
“The utensils are meant to represent different versions of the some feeding trait in a population of predators,” Singer said. “The beans represent different prey phenotypes within a population.”
Plastic utensils were used for their cheapness and re-usability, and the beans were also cheap and biodegradable.
This technique is a deviation from regular classroom lectures, a change taking place in some science classes.
“I wouldn’t say it is anomalous to use experiential learning per se, but some of the content material in my ecology class lends itself to a different kind of exercise than a standard science laboratory exercise,” Singer said. “I think my technique is effective because it is fun and conceptually interesting, but I also use other techniques for other kinds of content material. In other words, I think the best technique is to use a diversity of techniques.”
The techniques being used in this class help to branch out to a wider student base such as Rebecca Szper ’05, who is taking the class despite not being a science major.
“I really enjoy ecology, and after studying it a bunch in Ecuador, I wanted to take a class in a more formal setting to contextualize all the stuff I learned in the field,” Szper said. “It’s a lot more interesting than listening to lectures and reading out of textbooks.”
The exercise was done in both grassy and non-grassy areas to show how environments could affect the process.
“The results show that co-evolution occurs, and the outcome of co-evolution depends on the environmental context in which the predator-prey interaction occurs,” Singer said.
In order for the exercise to be successful, it not only has to provide valid results, but it also needs to help develop a better understanding of the material.
“I won’t know if I got a better understanding of the material until I actually finish graphing the results and answering the study questions,” Szper said.
She also said it was a fun exercise.
“People actually got pretty into it,” she said.
Singer expressed hope that examples of activities such as this would inspire students to take more science classes. While Szper suggested that most students usually don’t know about activities like this when signing up for classes, she was convinced by this method herself.
“I considered taking ecology two years ago as a sophomore and was turned off by the professor’s description of the class,” she said. “When I saw that there was a new professor, I contacted him to see if it was still the same format. I was happy to hear about the changes he had made, and that was definitely a factor in my choosing this course.”
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