Learning Facilities
Facilities and Tools for Learning
Constructed in 1969, the J. Edgar Monroe Science Complex houses dedicated teaching and research laboratories, together with our other facilities and offices. Each teaching laboratory has ample space for comfortable and effective learning, houses necessary instruments (e.g., student microscopes, incubators, environmental sampling equipment), materials (e.g., models, living and preserved organisms, vital tissues), and safety equipment.
Video and computer-assisted instruction has become a major learning tool and is strongly supported in our department. Teaching laboratories are equipped with video monitors and cameras (attached to microscopes) to demonstrate slides and live preparations to students. Several research labs support GIS and Image Analysis software.The analysis of images of all sorts -- from the ultrastructure of cells to tissues to whole organisms to ecological landscapes -- is one of the most active areas of basic and applied research in the biological sciences today. All labs are networked to the university's mainframe for access to campus servers and to the world via Internet.
Biology faculty are currently engaged in planning for substantial renovations to enhance our physical infrastructure. The new facilities will incorporate features to encourage and support active learning and research with a student-centered approach to learning.
Collaborative
learning
Collaborative learning, through small groups of lab partners is strongly
encouraged (or required) in all laboratory courses. The physical floorplan
of the laboratory classrooms and a dedication by our faculty to involve
students in significant practical experiences provide excellent opportunities
for collaborative learning in the laboratory and field. With all laboratories
situated on a single floor of Monroe Science Complex, together with Biology
faculty offices and the Departmental Office, the teaching laboratories
are often accessible outside of scheduled class meetings.
Cellular, Molecular, and Physiological
Tools for Learning
In 1990, the Biological Sciences Instrumentation
Laboratory (BSI Lab) was established with funding by the E.G. Schlieder
Foundation and matching funds from Loyola University. Since that time,
the lab has been expanded, upgraded, and significantly enhanced with the
support of the College of Arts & Sciences and University. The facility
presently houses state-of-the-art instruments to isolate, characterize,
and analyse biologically significant macromolecules (e.g., ultracentrifugation,
DNA sequencing, radioactive labelling).
The
BSI lab serves as a support facility for all Biology lab courses that
utilize cell and molecular methods, as well as for student and faculty
research. It operates in two modes -- as a dedicated space that can be
reserved for course use during class meetings, and as a standing facility
for Biology students who have specific assignments and/or projects that
can be supported by the lab.
The study of living systems -- cells to whole organisms -- is a most important part of any modern Biology program. Teaching and research spectrophotometers and electrophoretic systems support biochemical applications that are a central focus of physiology, microbiology, and cell biology courses. Isolation of cellular components vital to many biological disciplines is supported by cell fractionation collectors, analytical, high speed and ultracentrifuges that are housed in several teaching laboratories and in the BSI Lab
Molecular genetics
Today,
the study of genetics is not limited to examining the offspring of breeding
experiments. The development of molecular genetic tools has allowed an
explosive growth of new studies in biology. These new tools have impacted
virtually every area of biology from the molecular basis of gene expression
to the evolutionary relationship of organisms. Study of DNA, proteins,
carbohydrates, and lipids is strongly integrated into our courses in cell
and molecular biology, as well as organismal biology.
About half of our faculty use molecular genetic methods in their research, which spans a huge range of topics -- from gene expression in development to molecular parasitology to molecular genetics of cancer to population and evolutionary genetics. The BSI lab greatly supports molecular genetic research and teaching.
Microscopy
The light microscope remains one of the fundamental investigative tools of biology. Our laboratories house over 100 compound student microscopes and 50 dissecting microscopes that are used in many of our courses -- from freshmen to senior-level. We recently purchased phase contrast microscopes for our sophomore Cell & Molecular Biology Laboratory and are continually striving to enhance the microscopy and imaging capabilities of the department.
Culturing
and caring for living organisms
As biology is the study of living things, it is vitally important to have facilities to support studying organisms, their tissues, and cells. Cell culturing is supported by numerous incubators and environmental chambers housed in a centralized preparation area and in many of the teaching laboratories.
Biohazard hoods provide a safe means to culture pathogenic microorganisms. Fruit flies (Drosophila) are propagated in the "fly room" for genetics courses. A new greenhouse (replacing an older structure) supports the care of plants that are studied in several courses.
As important as computer simulations and mathematical models are, life cannot be appreciated without observing and studying it in vivo.
Field
and Environmental Biology
The department has excellent facilities and equipment for learning firsthand about Nature. Two 12-passenger vans, a 17 ft Boston Whaler, and an airboat provide the means to take students into the field. Local field trips are regularly mounted in many of our majors' and non-majors' courses. Environmental sampling and collecting equipment allow students to investigate local aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
Faculty and students have active field study sites in Mississippi River delta, Pearl River System, Lake Pontchartrain Basin, Florida Everglades, Gulf Coastal wetlands, and the tropical forests of the Yucatan peninsula.
The department's affiliation with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) provides our students with access to a state-of-the-art Marine Science Field Station in Cocodrie, LA. (LUMCON)
Biodiversity and organismal biology
The
understanding of organismal diversity and the relationships of living
things is fundamental to the study of biological systems. Laboratory courses
that focus on biodiversity are supported by preserved collections of specimens
that include a good representation of major groups. Included here are
fine teaching collections of vertebrates, many invertebrate taxa, vascular
and non-vascular plants, fungi, and single-celled eukaryotes and prokaryotes.
Microscopic slide collections of unicellular organisms and of tissues
from multicellular organisms are used extensively in core and elective
courses