I found this case to be a very effective way to teach the Scientific Method to a group of non-major biology students. This is the first case I have taught since attending a Chautauqua Short Course this past summer with Kipp Herreid, and it worked extremely well. I asked the 23 students to self-select themselves into groups of 3 or 4 and then worked through the case with class discussion following each of Parts I–III. We did not have enough time to complete part IV in the 50 minute time frame.

I found that the case questions yielded some interesting and creative solutions. In many cases it offered up a springboard for discussion of local migration and PCB contamination issues. Students also asked about PCB contamination in Great Lakes Fish and other pertinent topics. This is one of the many topics that will be addressed throughout the semester.

Rather than use the last few minutes of class on Part IV (though it seems a valuable thing to do), we discussed the advantages and shortfalls of the Scientific Method. Learning the Scientific Method through case participation will likely help the students complete future labs, for which they will need to construct hypotheses, design experiments, etc.

I found the referenced Nature (2003) article to be helpful and did not use any additional resources in class given the time constraint.

Comments submitted 09/22/2005 by:

Margit Brazda Poirier
Department of Biology
Monroe Community College
Rochester, NY
mpoirier@monroecc.edu