BIOL 1406 Lab Reports, Lab Notebook Guidelines
Students must have a lab text book and a lab notebook to record notes and daily lab activities. A three ring binder is recommended to keep notes and materials together and organized. Your lab instructor will give more information about this.
Every entry in your notebook should include a statement of purpose that includes terminology, test method, experiment data, observations and conclusions (what you learned) from each activity in the exercises. Conclusions should address each of the questions or objectives listed in the purpose for the activity.
Your instructor will identify the activities to be covered for each exercise. It is available online at the eCampus community NLC-BIOLOGY-LAB.
The NLC Academics Skills Center and NLC Writing Lab (L240) is also available to assist with writing lab reports. Remember, The NLC Science Learning Center (P333) for learning resources and tutoring!
Three Formal Lab Reports (25 points each) on the following topics :
LR 1 Lab 3: Carbon Chemistry- Exercise 3.2, Known and Unknown Testing
LR 2 Lab 7: Enzymes- Exercise 7.3 A or B, Effect of Temperature or pH
LR 3 Lab 9: Photosynthesis- Exercise 9.2, Necessity of Light
Each lab report will (must) consist of the following components for each activity:
Exercise # and Title of experiment
Introduction
Purpose
Identify the exercise objectives / questions to be answered by the activity and define any necessary terms. Include your hypothesis in this section.
Hypothesis
Should be worded as an
if
.then
. statement based on the question your experiment was designed to answer. It should be easy to prove wrong. (Ex: I expect that if yeast is given sugar, then more carbon dioxide will be produced.)
Materials & Methods
Materials
What did you use to conduct the experiment? Include equipment, glassware, reagents etc. used.
Test Method
How is the experiment done?
Describe in detail how you set up the activity.
DO NOT COPY FROM THE LAB MANUAL.
Procedure / steps
Step by step instructions should be included in the Materials and Methods section.
Results
Observations
What happened during the exercise?
Data collected in neat table format.
Any graphs or photos of experimental results should be included here.
What were the results, what did you see?
Discuss your observations.
Discussion
Conclusion(s)
How do the observations answer the questions and objectives that have been identified in the purpose? Include a direct answer to your hypothesis. What was learned as a result of the lab exercise?
Errors / Suggestions
If your results are unexpected, identify any possible sources of errors and your suggestions to avoid errors and/or improve the experiment.
References
Any references used should be cited appropriately.
Exercises are to be completed accurately at the time specified by the instructor. Any points deducted will be determined by the instructor and the grading rubric. Absolutely no plagiarism will be tolerated . Everything must be in your original words, not copied from the book or another student. Reports should be written independently despite being conducted in a group. Any plagiarism will result in a Zero.
