NeuroLab 2.0: An Alternative Storyline Design Approach for Translating a Research-Based Summer Experience into an Advanced STEM+M Curriculum Unit that Supports Three-Dimensional Teaching and Learning in the Classroom.

In this case study, we describe an alternative storyline design approach that we adopted to translate an informal, out-of-school summer science experience with a strong emphasis on developmental neuroscience and data literacy into a more inclusive, replicable, and scalable experience for formal high school science instruction. Combining elements of problem- and project-based learning, a storyline is a curriculum model that engages students in the application of investigative science and engineering practices to incrementally build conceptual models that explain an observable (anchoring) phenomenon. Published reports on the storyline design process describe procedures and tools that are well suited to the creation of novel instructional units.

NeuroLab Research Experiences: Extending the CURE Design Framework into an Informal Science Setting Dedicated to Pre-College STEM Instruction.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) represent distinctive learning environments that are organized around a well-articulated design framework aimed at broadening student participation in scientific research. Among the published descriptions of CURE models that are currently available in the education research literature, the vast majority have been implemented in four-year institutions of higher learning with undergraduate students. In this programmatic article, we utilize the CURE design framework to characterize a highly structured instructional intervention that engages upper-level high school students in basic research that bridges comparative functional genomics and developmental neuroscience.

Otolith patterns of rockfishes from the northeastern Pacific.

Sagitta otolith shape was analysed in twenty sympatric rockfishes off the southern California coast (Northeastern Pacific). The variation in shape was quantified using canonical variate analysis based on fifth wavelet function decomposition of otolith contour. We selected wavelets because this representation allow the identifications of zones or single morphological points along the contour.

Barcoding life's matrix: translating biodiversity genomics into high school settings to enhance life science education.

From biomes to genomes: Innovating life science education by engaging students as citizen scientists in the International Barcode of Life project.

Differentially expressed Drl and Drl-2 play opposing roles in Wnt5 signaling during Drosophila olfactory system development.

In Drosophila, odor information received by olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) is processed by glomeruli, which are organized in a stereotypic manner in the antennal lobe (AL). This glomerular organization is regulated by Wnt5 signaling. In the embryonic CNS, Wnt5 signaling is transduced by the Drl receptor, a member of the Ryk family.

Activation of receptors negatively coupled to adenylate cyclase is required for induction of long-term synaptic depression at Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapses.

Chemical LTD (CLTD) of synaptic transmission is triggered by simultaneously increasing presynaptic [cGMP] while inhibiting PKA. Here, we supply evidence that class II, but not III, metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), and A1 adenosine receptors, both negatively coupled to adenylate cyclase, play physiologic roles in providing PKA inhibition necessary to promote the induction of LTD at Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapses in hippocampal slices. Simultaneous activation of group II mGluRs with the selective agonist (2S,2'R,3'R)-2-(2',3'-dicarboxy-cyclopropyl) glycine (DCGIV; 5 microM), while raising [cGMP] with the type V phosphodiesterase inhibitor, zaprinast (20 microM), resulted in a long-lasting depression of synaptic strength.

A paired-pulse facilitation analysis of long-term synaptic depression at excitatory synapses in rat hippocampal CA1 and CA3 regions.

Paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) is a form of short-term, activity-dependent synaptic plasticity common to most chemically transmitting synapses, manifested as an enhancement in the amplitude of the second of two rapidly evoked excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs). The generally accepted explanation of PPF posits that residual intraterminal free [Ca(2+)] from the first action potential facilitates the probability of transmitter release evoked by the second stimulus. A common extension of this hypothesis postulates that any plastic change which alters the probability of transmitter release, should also alter the magnitude of PPF.