BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
Project Overview

BioQUEST welcomes collaborative project ideas designed to support investigative, student-centered learning from individuals at other institutions and organizations.

Among our current projects are co-developed curriculum materials for:

  • an internet-based suite of bioinformatics tools, databases, and participant-generated curriculum materials
  • a database and tools for exploring evolution via multiple data resources
  • investigative cases for introductory biology in two year institutions, and
  • multimedia resources for the ASM video series "Unseen Life on Earth."

There are several external projects of interest to our community that may also be helpful in revising your own courses.

The BEDROCK Project

The BEDROCK Project

BEDROCK ( NSF-funded project) aimed at integrating bioinformatics throughout the undergraduate biology curriculum, using an inquiry-based approach in which students explore and analyze actual data in a way that recreates the experience of conducting research.

BIRDD

The BIRDDProject provides a wide range of data relating to the Galapagos and Darwin's finches accessible for students who are investigating evolution.

Computational Tools
& Resources for Biology Educators

EPIC

In 2005, NSF announced the formation of a new collaboration to construct a human capacity building infrastructure that extends the cyberinfrastructure community to include a much larger number of talented and diverse people. The collaboration, "Engaging People in Cyberinfrastructure," or EPIC, is focused to interlink and coordinate projects that will significantly increase the diversity and number of people that are learning about and applying cyberinfrastructure to address research and educational needs from K-12 through university research programs. This is an outgrowth of EOT-PACI, of which BioQUEST was a parter.

ESTEEM

Visit the ESTEEM project site

This project (Excel Simulations and Tools for Exploratory, Experiential Mathematics) seeks to engage you in the development and implementation of high quality, adoptable, and adaptable curricular materials in biology and mathematics education.

ICBL

An outgrowth of the earlier, NSF-funded project, LifeLines OnLine, this project continues the development of a method of learning and teaching that gives students opportunities to direct their own learning as they explore the science underlying realistically complex situations.

Microbes Count!

Microbes Count!

This is a collection of multimedia resources, simulations, and tools that offer an interactive, open-ended environment for learning about microbiology. These resources are research-related, contemporary, and lend themselves to collaborative learning in classroom, laboratory, field, or computer workspaces. Microbes Count! can be purchased from ASM Press. The book features 40 lab activities and includes access to online resources such as software, data and extended learning materials.

BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium    Beloit College   700 College Street   Beloit, WI 53511  
Phone (608) 363-2012   Fax (608) 363-2052    Email: bioquest@beloit.edu