Final Report to the National Science Foundation on Grant DUE-9752339 Alternative Routes to Quantitative Literacy for the Life Sciences Submitted by: Principal Investigator: Louis J. Gross (gross@tiem.utk.edu). Co-Principal Investigators: Beth C. Mullin and Susan E. Riechert The Institute for Environmental Modeling and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-1610 October 25, 2001 Investigators and their affiliations: L. J. Gross, The Institute for Environmental Modeling and Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics; Beth C. Mullin, Department of Botany; Susan E. Riechert, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Otto J. Schwarz, Department of Botany; Monica Beals, Grad Student, Ecology; Susan Harrell, Grad Student, Mathematics (currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at The University of Chicago). Other collaborators or contacts: Numerous contacts have been made throughout the time of this project. This includes a long list of faculty associated with the various institutions and meetings at which the project results were presented. A complete listing of such meetings and activities is provided under the outreach section of this report. We mention here by name only a limited number of individuals with whom the project members have had contact and discussions. Dr. John Jungck, Beloit College, BioQuest project. Dr. Jerry Johnson, University of Nevada, Reno Dr. Gregg Hartvigsen, SUNY Geneseo Dr. Chris Leary, SUNY Geneseo Dr. Alan Berkowitz, Institute of Ecosytem Studies Dr. Claudia Neuhauser, University of Minnesota Dr. Nancy Kopell, Boston University Dr. Irene Eckstrand, NIH Activities and Findings: There were several project components under development over the time of this project, each of which is discussed below. There are considerable more details on the project available on the project Home Page at http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/. Quantitative Competency Exams: One of the main objectives of this project was to determine the utility of alternative methods to enhance the quantitative components of a large-lecture format general biology sequence. First, a quantitative competency examination was developed specifically to evaluate the quantitative skills of students taking the general biology sequence for science majors. This exam was initially developed based upon the skills and concepts that Dr. Mullin thought appropriate for students taking the Organization and Function of the Cell component of the general biology sequence. Another version of this exam was also constructed based upon the skills and concepts that Dr. Riechert thought appropriate for students taking the Biodiversity component, dealing with whole organism, ecology and evolutionary areas, of the general biology sequence. These exams were given at the beginning of the semester to students in all sections of the course, and a retest was given at the end of the semester. Initially, results were compared between students in Dr. Mullin's class, in which a preliminary effort was made to illustrate quantitative concepts appropriate to certain portions of the course material, and students in other sections taught by faculty without any particular emphasis on quantitative concepts. Both the initial and follow-up exams consisted of multiple-choice questions and word problems, none of which required a calculator. Dr. Mullin emphasized quantitative concepts in lectures, included quantitative problems on class exams, and encouraged students to work on understanding the problems on the competency exam. Student test scores at the end of the semester increased dramatically from those at the beginning of the semester in Dr. Mullin's course, while they did not change at all for the other sections. Although this clearly demonstrates the capability for student's basic comprehension of quantitative ideas to improve during a science course without explicit instruction in quantitative concepts, there were explicit incentives to improve given to students in Dr. Mullin's class that were not present in the other course sections. One main objective of the exams was to provide a self-assessment for the students' use; the exam covered basic mathematical concepts that would be used in the course, and provided information about available tutorial resources. Students were expected to score at least 90% on the exam, and advised to review the missed concepts if they did not. The exam also served to emphasize to students that math is not only a fundamental part of biology, but would be an important part of the course they were about to take. Another objective was for us to gain an idea of the general level of students' familiarity with these concepts at the beginning of the course. These exams have been used several times over the time of the project. A detailed report on the results are provided on the project home page at: http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/competency.htm and a poster describing some of the results of this portion of the project was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Spokane, Washington, August 9, 1999. A publication describing the results of the competency components of the project is being composed. Primer of Quantitative Biology: A second major component of the project involves the development of a Primer of Quantitative Biology designed to accompany a general biology sequence. The objective is to provide, for each standard section of such a course sequence, a set of short, self-contained examples of how quantitative approaches have taught us something new in that area of biology. We have aimed most examples towards high-school level math, though there are some calculus-level and above examples included throughout as well. A standard format for each module was established and a collection of 57 modules have been developed as part of this project. These have all been made available through the project home page and are posted at: http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/modulelist.html These modules have been implemented in a variety of ways in the geberal biology courses. First, they have been used in lectures as a supplement to lecture material. Secondly, they have been assigned to students as outside reading assignments. Third, students have been asked to turn in formal reports as homework assignments based around the additional questions to be answered at the end of each module. After discussion with several potential publishers, it was decided that the Primer would have two components. The beginning of the Primer is to consist of brief reviews of basic mathematical concepts, mainly at a high school level, that are essential to understanding the basic quantitative literature in biology. These are being discussed completely with biological examples and linked in detail to the second part of the Primer which consists of the modules described above. The full text would be published as hard-copy by a commercial publisher, with some of the modules remaining on a publicly available web site and the remainder available through a controlled web site. Publication of the full Primer is still under negotiation at this time. Additional project components: A significant effort has been made to publicise the results of the effort on this project by organizing workshops, giving formal presentations at numerous institutions, and serving on a variety of advisory panels. A complete list of dissemination activities is provided elsewhere in this report, but a few major ones include: an NSF Chautauqua Course "Quantitative Life Science Education: Preparing Fearless Biologists" presented in June 1999, participation in the MAA Curriculum Foundations Workshop on Mathematics and Biology; service by Dr. Gross on the National Academy of Sciences Mathematics and Computer Science Panel for the BIO2010 Project; and service by Dr. Gross on the Biological Education Network project of the Ecological Society of America organized through the AAAS. As an outgrowth of this project, a listing of the Key Quantitative Concepts for Undergraduate Biology Students has been developed (see http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bio.quantitative.topics.txt). This in turn led to an attempt to summarize the actual usage of quantitative ideas in short scientific communications, as indicated by a survey of the posters presented at annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Ecological Society of America. The analysis of these posters clearly indicated that the key concepts utilized in presenting quantitative ideas were highly descriptive and graphical in nature. This indicates a disjunct between the typical quantitative requirements of biology majors (mostly calculus) and the actual practiced usage of quantitative ideas (mostly descriptive statistics and visualization). Home Page: Extensive efforts were made to provide a comprehensive Home Page for this project to aid dissemination. In addition to basic information about the project and the collection of modules developed, this contains a page with an extensive collection of links to ongoing reform projects in General Biology education developed as an aid to this project. It also contains links to a wide variety of ongoing projects devoted to quantitative training in the life sciences, developed in collaboration with the Education Committee of the Society for Mathematical Biology. Major findings: 1. Inclusion of a quantitative emphasis within biology courses can aid students to improve their quantitative skills, if these are made an inherent part of the course and not simply an add-on. Evidence suggests that students retain these quantitative skills through later courses. 2. Instructors can utilize quantitative competency exams to encourage students early in a course to focus on skills they should have mastered and see the connection between these skills and the biological topics in the course. 3. The key quantitative concepts that are used in short scientific communications (not necessarily in journal articles) are basic graphical and statistical ones that are typically covered very little in a formal manner in most undergraduate biology curricula. Visualization/interpretation of data and results is critical to the conceptual foundations of biology training and should be given higher priority in the curriculum. This might include a formal course on Biological Data Analysis, but needs to be emphasized throughout the science courses students take. Training and Development: For the faculty involved at UT, this has involved collaboration between the biology and mathematics faculty and encouraged the inclusion of more quantitative ideas in the general biology courses. This involved collaborations between the faculty and a math as well as a biology graduate student to develop exams, laboratory materials and course materials. The graduate students involved have not only increased their understanding of the utility of quantitative approaches in variety of biological areas, but have also enhanced their writing, presentation and html authoring skills. Another aspect of training involves the extensive efforts made to disseminate the results of the project. A complete list of these is elsewhere in the report. We estimate that formal presentations on this project have been made to over 500 math and biology faculty members over the course of the project. Outreach activities: Numerous activities/talks were given over the supported period that included aspects of the effort on this project. Many of the below were done without any direct financial from this project. Activities include: Mathematics Awareness Month, a project of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, in 1999 this focused on Mathematical Biology. As part of this, Dr. Gross wrote two essays which were posted on special page of the Mathematics Awareness Month Home Page, located at the Mathematics Forum Site at http://forum.swarthmore.edu/mam/ and Dr. Gross also organized the Mathematics Awareness day activities at UTK focused on high school students. Information on the Day's activities are at: http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/mam.html NSF Chautauqua Course "Quantitative Life Science Education: Preparing Fearless Biologists". Presented by Dr. Gross at Christian Brothers University, Memphis, TN on June 17-19, 1999 at no cost to this project. This included detailed descriptions of the efforts on this project, copies of modules provided to the Course participants, and feedback from the participants (all of whom were college mathematics or biology faculty) on these modules was obtained. Special Session on Education in Mathematical Biology, chaired by Dr. Gross at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology at the Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 29-July 3, 1999 at no cost to this project. Dr. Gross presented a paper on the project "Quantitative Training in the Life Sciences: Designing an Undergraduate Curriculum in Computational Biology", and led a separate group discussion on mathematics for biology students. Poster presented by Susan Harrell at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Spokane, Washington, August 9, 1999, partially supported by this project. Poster title was "Improving the quantitative skills of life sciences students through General Biology reform" and provided a summary of the efforts on this project. Poster content is available on the project home page. Discussion session at University of Fribourg, Switzerland, October 6-10, 1999, at no cost to this project. Troisieme cycle romand en sciences biologiques: Wetlands, Population Dynamics of Plants and Animals Dr. Gross led a discussion session on undergraduate education and modeling. Workshop on Modeling for Undergraduates at State University of New York at Geneseo, November 4-7, 1999, at no cost to this project. In addition to the 5-hour workshop, Dr. Gross discussed results of the project with faculty in math and biology. Talk on Interdisciplinary Quantitative Curriculum Development: Lessons from a Project in the Life Sciences presented by Dr. Gross at Ohio University, Athens Ohio, November 14-15, 1999. This included discussions with faculty from math and biology about the project. Workshop and discussion on undergraduate education led by Dr. Gross at Fifth Course on Mathematical Ecology, ICTP Trieste, Italy, March 3-13, 2000. Discussion of project results presented at UT Conference on Mathematics and Sciences Education, Knoxville, TN March 29-30, 2000. Drs. Gross, Mullin and Schwarz all participated. Discussion session on mathematics and undergraduate biology education, led by Dr. Gross May 9-12, 2000 at L¹ÉCOLE DE PRINTEMPS - Modèles et théories pour le contrôle de ressources vivantes et la gestion de systèmes écologiques. Grignon-Paris, France. Dr. Gross led a discussion and discussed results of the project at the NSF Quantitative Environmental Biology Workshop, San Diego Supercomputer Center, San Diego, CA, September 7-9, 2000. Dr. Gross participated in discussions on mathematics training and undergraduate ecology as part of DOE Workshop on the Effective use of ecological modeling in management, Oak Ridge, TN, October 23-26, 2000. Dr. Gross gave the keynote address on Education for a Biocomplex Future at the MAA Curriculum Foundations Workshop in Biology and Chemistry, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN, November 2-5, 2000. Dr. Gross gave a talk on Interdisciplinary Quantitative Curriculum Development: Lessons from a Project in the Life Sciences at Arizona State University for Biology and Mathematics faculty, March 8, 2001. Dr. Gross summarized the project results for the National Academy of Sciences Mathematics and Computer Science Panel for the BIO2010 Project meeting, held March 16, 2001 at Boston University. Dr. Gross led a faculty Workshop on Interdisciplinary Quantitative Curriculum Development at Hollins University, Roanoke, VA on April 20, 2001. Dr. Gross led the discussion group on undergraduate training at the Cary Conference IX (Understanding Ecosystems: The Role of Quantitative Models in Observation, Synthesis & Prediction) May 1-3, 2001 at Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY. Dr. Gross, in his role as coordinator for Education and Outreach Activities for the Evolution 2001 Meetings (annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the American Society of Naturalists) June 27-30, 2001 in Knoxville, TN, led a workshop for high school biology teachers and gave a talk on project results "Training fearless biologists: quantitative skills all our students need". Dr. Gross led a discussion session at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Madison, WI, August 6-9, 2001 on "Helping undergraduates appreciate the role of theory in ecology" and gave a talk on "Training fearless ecologists: quantitative skills all our students need" in the education session. Dr. Gross gave an invited talk at the National Academy of Sciences Workshop: Bio2010: Undergraduate Biology Education to Prepare Research Scientists for the 21st Century. A Workshop on Innovative Undergraduate Teaching held in Snowmass, CO August 12-14, 2001. The talk was "Quantitative Life Sciences Education: Some Lessons from a Ten-year Effort". Dr. Gross also participated in numerous discussions at this workshop related to the project efforts. Dr. Gross gave a talk "Quantitative Life Sciences Education: Some Lessons from a Ten-year Effort" at Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers, FL as part of a Workshop on Applied Biology/Biotechnology on September 6, 2001. Publications: Journal articles: Gross, L. J. 2000. Education for a biocomplex future. Science 288:807. Books: Gross, L. J., S. Harrell, M. Beals. A Primer of Quantitative Biology. (In negotiation, not yet published). Ewing, H., K. Hogan, F. Keesing, H. Bugmann, A. Berkowitz, L. Gross, J. Oris, and J. Wright. The role of modeling in undergraduate education. In: Proceedings of the IX Cary Conference. C. Canham (ed.), in review. Internet publication: Home Page is at http://www.tiem.utk.edu/bioed/ Contributions within Discipline: This project had a major goal of enhancing the quantitative understanding of undergraduate life science students at an early stage of their education. Efforts to date indicate that use of materials such as those we have developed definitely enhance students' comprehension of basic mathematical concepts of importance in biology. The modules we have developed should be readily applicable in many different settings in general biology courses. The efforts we have made to focus attention of biology faculty on the quantitative components of their undergraduate courses should in the long term lead to undergraduates who are better prepared for careers in modern biology. Contributions to Other Disciplines A longer term objective of this project is to enhance life science students' appreciation for the utility of mathematics and hopefully encourage more students to consider more advanced quantitative training. The growing fields of computational biology, bioinformatics and genomics will benefit from an influx of quantitatively literate biologists. The interdisciplinary nature of these new fields requires a willingness on the part of students to fearlessly attempt to master areas in which they may have no formal training, and a firm quantitative conceptual background is needed to allow this. Contributions to Human Resource Development In addition to the training of the two graduate students involved in this project, the project has impacted over 2000 undergraduate students at UT who have been involved in the general biology courses utilizing the results of this project. Although we do not have any formal method to track the utilization of the modules we have developed, we are aware of their use in several other universities. We estimate that formal presentations and training sessions concerning this project have directly reached over 500 math and biology faculty members over the course of the project. Contributions to Resources for Research and Education Major efforts are currently underway by a variety of scientific and educational organizations to modify undergraduate experiences in both mathematics and biology. We have made a strong effort to be actively involved in several of these, to ensure that the work carried out under this project has a likelihood to influence these projects. The major ones we believe have been influenced by this project, mainly through the efforts of Dr. Gross as a member of a variety of advisory panels, have been the BIO 2010 project of the National Academy of Sciences, the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM) of the Math Association of America (MAA), and the Biological Education Network Project of the Ecological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Contributions Beyond Science and Engineering It is only through a quantitatively literate public that rational public policy decisions may be made on a variety of complex issues which involve the life sciences. Assessments of risk from various activities, comparing the relative benefits of alternative management plans for natural resources, and decisions regarding the availability of certain drugs and medical procedures inherently involve quantitative as well as qualitative comparisons. The results of this project should over the long-term aid enhance not just the training of future scientists, but that of the general public who may well be more likely to comprehend the application of quantitive ideas to the life sciences than to the physical sciences.