Elizabethtown College Lecturer and Lab Coordinator for Biology, Sarah Noveral and five undergraduate teaching assistants traveled to the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE) national conference at the University of Maryland from June 25 through 29.
“Attending conferences like this ensures that we are keeping our curriculum up to date and implementing changes that reflect innovations in lab education across North America,” Noveral said. “The students and I all came away from the conference with exciting ideas to bring back to Etown for this year and many years moving forward.”
The Etown delegation attended four sessions, made up of three-hour labs with hands-on experience and teacher resources. The students and Noveral played the role of students in the classroom while brainstorming ways to teach the labs back at Etown.
The conference resulted in an update to an enzyme lab on campus this fall and a new dog genetics lab that will be used as a national project to collect data on a dog gene that could be used as a screen test for service animals.
“We also got lots of ideas for pedagogical teaching strategies, including data analysis and graphing, enhancing belonging in the science classroom, the ethics of using DNA from students, and peer teaching,” Noveral said.
The students who attended the conference all took multiple, introductory biology courses in their first year and will serve as teacher assistants in the courses during the 2024-25 academic year. Students attending were Biology Health Professions majors Rachael Eidem ’27, Asher Landrum ’27, Hannah Wood ’27, Ryan Kraychik ’27, and Environmental Science major Elizabeth Wasylyk ’27.
“This experience allowed me to make connections beyond all the wonderful people at Etown, which will help me find more learning or career opportunities after graduation,” Wasylyk said. “I’ll also be able to use the teaching skills and techniques I picked up from the conference to better assist during my lab experiences.”
ABLE is an organization focused on sound biology laboratory education. The organization was founded in 1979 to promote the exchange of information among educators to promote best practices for laboratory exercises. ABLE’s annual conferences are attended by faculty, staff, graduate students, and postdoctoral students who plan to pursue a career in academia.
An energizing laboratory-focused and flexible degree in Biology prepares Etown students well for graduate school and the workforce by providing the skills to observe, quantify, interpret, and analyze the world around them. Discover more at etown.edu.
