How can we incorporate Indigenous perspectives into science courses?

In recent years, post-secondary institutions across Canada have emphasized the importance of incorporating Indigenous perspectives into curricula. Science instructors may be uncertain about how to successfully integrate Indigenous traditions and ways of knowing with concepts derived from the scientific method while remaining respectful of and true to both approaches. In this session, I would like to spark discussion by presenting my initial attempts to incorporate Indigenous perspectives into an introductory biochemistry course. I will describe how I approached the land acknowledgement, give examples of how I connected traditional Indigenous practices to scientific concepts presented in the course, and show how students were encouraged to independently explore connections between biochemistry and Indigenous traditions through an open-ended assignment. Session attendees will be encouraged to share their own approaches and ideas in this area and reflect on changes they could make to their own courses. Through this session, I hope that all in attendance will progress in their thinking about how to create science courses through which non-Indigenous students will gain appreciation for Indigenous ways of knowing, and Indigenous students will feel a greater sense of belonging

16. Using Content-Specific Lyrics to Familiar Tunes in a Large Lecture Setting

Music can be used in lectures to increase student engagement and help students retain information. In this paper, I describe my use of biochemistry-related lyrics written to the tune of the theme to the television show, The Flintstones, in a large class setting (400-800 students). To determine student perceptions, the class was surveyed several weeks after the song was used. Students reported a high level of engagement and enjoyment during the song. Many students found the song to be a helpful study tool. To guide future song selection, the students were also asked to indicate their familiarity with 30 popular songs from the past 50+ years. The songs that were least familiar to the students were all released before 1980, but some older songs were well known. The results support the use of content-specific lyrics set to familiar tunes as an educational tool, and provides information about specific songs that would or would not be suitable for this purpose

Simplifying the grading of written assignments in a large, introductory biochemistry course using Crowdmark

Developing the ability of science students to write is challenging, partly because grading written work and providing effective feedback is time-consuming. However, the ability to communicate effectively in writing is essential to a university science student’s education. To give our students practice writing at an early stage in our program, we introduced a written assignment into our introductory biochemistry course, which typically has an enrolment of about 1200 students. Expectations for the assignment were communicated through carefully constructed instructions and a simple but detailed rubric. Students uploaded their assignments to the software Crowdmark, which allows instructors to assign TAs to specific submissions, follow their progress, and track time spent by TAs on marking. TAs generated their own comment bank, and assigned grades using instructor-created comments carrying point values such that grades on each assignment were automatically summed. Marks and feedback were returned to students electronically. In this session we will explain how the assignment was designed to develop students’ writing ability and show how Crowdmark was used for grading. The benefits of an online tool for grading many written assignments included easy distribution of assignments to TAs, automatic summing and recording of student marks, and rapid entry of legible feedback

Channel Function is Dissociated from the Intrinsic Kinase Activity and Autophosphorylation of TRPM7/ChaK1

TRPM7/ChaK1 is a unique channel/kinase that contains a TRPM channel domain with 6 transmembrane segments fused to a novel serine-threonine kinase domain at its C terminus. The goal of this study was to investigate a possible role of kinase activity and autophosphorylation in regulation of channel activity of TRPM7/ChaK1. Residues essential for kinase activity were identified by site-directed mutagenesis. Two major sites of autophosphorylation were identified in vitro by mass spectrometry at Ser(1511) and Ser(1567), and these sites were found to be phosphorylated in intact cells. TRPM7/ChaK1 is a cation-selective channel that exhibits strong outward rectification and inhibition by millimolar levels of internal [Mg(2+)]. Mutation of the two autophosphorylation sites or of a key catalytic site that abolished kinase activity did not alter channel activity measured by whole-cell recording or Ca(2+) influx. Inhibition by internal Mg(2+) was also unaffected in the autophosphorylation site or kinase-dead mutants. Moreover, kinase activity was enhanced by Mg(2+), was decreased by Zn(2+), and was unaffected by Ca(2+). In contrast, channel activity was inhibited by all three of these divalent cations. However, deletion of much of C-terminal kinase domain resulted in expression of an apparently inactive channel. We conclude that neither current activity nor regulation by internal Mg(2+) is affected by kinase activity or autophosphorylation but that the kinase domain may play a structural role in channel assembly or subcellular localization

Channel Function is Dissociated from the Intrinsic Kinase Activity and Autophosphorylation of TRPM7/ChaK1

TRPM7/ChaK1 is a unique channel/kinase that contains a TRPM channel domain with 6 transmembrane segments fused to a novel serine-threonine kinase domain at its C terminus. The goal of this study was to investigate a possible role of kinase activity and autophosphorylation in regulation of channel activity of TRPM7/ChaK1. Residues essential for kinase activity were identified by site-directed mutagenesis. Two major sites of autophosphorylation were identified in vitro by mass spectrometry at Ser(1511) and Ser(1567), and these sites were found to be phosphorylated in intact cells. TRPM7/ChaK1 is a cation-selective channel that exhibits strong outward rectification and inhibition by millimolar levels of internal [Mg(2+)]. Mutation of the two autophosphorylation sites or of a key catalytic site that abolished kinase activity did not alter channel activity measured by whole-cell recording or Ca(2+) influx. Inhibition by internal Mg(2+) was also unaffected in the autophosphorylation site or kinase-dead mutants. Moreover, kinase activity was enhanced by Mg(2+), was decreased by Zn(2+), and was unaffected by Ca(2+). In contrast, channel activity was inhibited by all three of these divalent cations. However, deletion of much of C-terminal kinase domain resulted in expression of an apparently inactive channel. We conclude that neither current activity nor regulation by internal Mg(2+) is affected by kinase activity or autophosphorylation but that the kinase domain may play a structural role in channel assembly or subcellular localization