Session length: half-day

Organizer: Leó Laporte (Professor Emeritus, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz; 650-364-3386, laporte@ucsc.edu).

Description: The purpose of this workshop is to provide college instructors a basis for offering their own course on Charles Darwin. The presentation will use as a model a similar course I offered for many years for non-majors, both at Brown and at UC Santa Cruz, by means of a web site I designed that examines the life and chief work of Darwin:

http://campus.digication.com/darwin/Home/

I will review the web site, page by page,  to describe the content,  purpose, and logic of each page/topic,  and answer questions on the way.  My presentation will not mean reading each page, line by line, but instead be a kind of "voice over" as we go through it together.  There will be enough time for my explication, their sharing their own possible experiences about teaching some aspect of Darwin, questions about pedagogy, and what in fact happens in the classroom, etc., etc.  The overall goal is to enable others to develop their own course. A CD copy of the website will be made available to all participants at no charge.

Session length: All day Monday and Tuesday

Description: Bio-Rad Corporation of Hercules, CA, is presenting the following five hands-on workshops to give middle school, high school and university instructors the opportunity to train in molecular techniques and also to try out some of the molecular biology kits they offer to educators. There is no additional charge for these workshops. However, participants must be registered for the meeting. A special "workshop-only" meeting registration is available at the reduced fee of $10.00. Contact the AAASPD office (see below) for more information on this. Be sure to wear your meeting badge to each session.

Space is on an “as available ” basis and preregistration is required. Please indicate your interest in these workshops on the Advance Registration Form.

Upon request, Bio-Rad representatives will provide certificates of attendance for those desiring to utilize these workshops for professional development credits.

Biotechnology impacts multiple subject areas and engages students in the rapidly changing scientific landscape.  Looking for inquiry-based lab activities that are easy to set up, guaranteed to work, and come with complete curriculum? Join us for an overview of the Biotechnology Explorer program and learn how our kits and research-quality equipment combine to bring relevant real-world lab experiences to your students.  The kits can be used individually to enhance your life science, agricultural or health science courses or in series as a complete biotechnology course.

In this unique modular lab series, students are guided through an innovative research workflow identical to those performed in genomics labs worldwide. Learn about this multiple-week lab course, where students combine traditional and cutting edge molecular biology techniques and bioinformatics to clone, sequence, and analyze a housekeeping gene from a plant of your choice ensuring each class produces unique and novel data.

How do you clone a gene when you don’t know the DNA sequence? Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a vital metabolic enzyme involved in one of the most basic of biological processes – glycolysis in respiration. In this workshop you will use degenerate and nested PCR primers from this highly conserved gene to amplify GAPDH genes from uncharacterized organisms as the first step towards cloning.

Can I see your DNA? Introduce your students to molecular biology with their own DNA. In this hands-on workshop you will extract the DNA from your own cheek cells then watch it precipitate. Bring only your imagination and take home your own DNA — in a necklace!

Genetic engineering has led to a phenomenal explosion of new health treatments, agricultural applications, and environmental solutions. In this hands-on workshop, you will create your own genetically modified organisms and designer proteins and explore the mechanisms of gene expression and genetic selection. You will transform bacteria with a bioluminescent jellyfish gene that codes for Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)! AP Biology Lab 6. All participants will receive a free UV lamp and lab prep DVD!

Don’t stop at cloning the gene — identify the protein responsible for the green fluorescence!  Take white and green colonies from your transformed plates, prepare sample lysates and identify the pGLO protein using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The bacterial proteome contains thousands of proteins, but only the cloned GFP protein glows! Use the phenotypic trait of this protein to quickly identify the protein within the complex mix. DNA > RNA > PROTEIN > TRAIT — Green Fluorescence!

Description: Initiated in 2001, Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) is a national dissemination project funded by the National Science Foundation. SENCER has established and supported an ever-growing community of faculty, students, academic leaders, and others to improve undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education for non-science majors by connecting learning to critical civic questions. In 2007, the SENCER project established five regional SENCER Centers of Innovation (SCI). The SCIs expand the work of SENCER by organizing regional workshops designed to foster a multi- and interdisciplinary approach to science education with a focus on civic engagement. SCI-West is organizing this workshop to provide opportunities for AAAS members to engage SENCER faculty, discuss SENCER approaches, and consider developing regional collaborations. The AAAS Pacific Division SENCER workshop will have four one-hour segments:

• SENCER Overview and Model Courses (Amy Shachter, Santa Clara University)
  A dynamic introduction to the SENCER project including an overview of an interdisciplinary set of SENCER Model courses.
• Designing a SENCER course (Amy Shachter, Santa Clara University)
  An interactive workshop that takes participants through a nine step program to design a SENCER science course.
• SCI-West Watershed Research Project (Steve Bachofer, Saint Mary’s College)
  An overview of the watershed research project model being developed by SCI-West including a discussion of ways to become involved.
• Assessment using the SENCER Self-Assessment of Learning Gains Instrument (Stephen Carroll, Santa Clara University)
  An introduction to the SALG instrument and how it can be used to understand perceptions of student learning gains.

Session length: half-day

Organizer: Karina Garbesi (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, California State University East Bay, Hayward, CA; 510-885-3172, karina.garbesi@csueastbay.edu).

Co-organizers: Elvyra San Juan (Assistant Vice-Chancellor, California State University System, Long Beach, CA), Matthew St. Clair (Sustainability Manager, University of California, Office of the President, Oakland, CA) and Daniel Press (Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA).

Description: The State of California has set ambitious energy efficiency goals: by 2030 all new commercial buildings will be zero net energy and 50% of existing buildings will be retrofit thereto. Achieving this goal will require (1) rapid learning and adaptation from large-scale early implementation projects and (2) rapid development of professional capacity statewide to execute the task. The UC and CSU systems are ideally placed to serve both roles. The campuses must act as laboratories of research, practice, and learning, through planning, executing, beta testing, and managing their own transition to zero net energy. Sharing expertise, resources, educational capacity, and experience, the systems can efficiently develop and vet models of integrated building/technology design, project implementation, commissioning, management, and monitoring that can be reproduced statewide. Phased implementation, incorporating sequential clusters of campuses, each representing a broad range of climate zones, will reduce the potential of replicating mistakes, while balancing efficiency and urgency, and developing professional capacity with relevant experience distributed throughout the state. The high level of collaboration and adaptability this will demand of administration, staff, and faculty, from research and instruction, facilities management, and capital planning, is unprecedented and will require deep resolve. But the payoff will be enormous in the civic engagement of our universities, the vital enrichment of the learning environment, and the fate of the planet. This workshop seeks to develop a commitment to this process and a common vision for implementation, and to identify key participants, their roles, and the next steps to initiate Phase 1.