Cell Biology of Stress Mentor: Dr. Jay Brewster With increasing industrialization and human population growth, air pollution has become an environmental threat to human health. Students in this seminar will expose human cells in tissue culture to nanoparticles found in polluted air as well as improvise simple methods to assess cellular stress, survival, and biochemical activity. Methods of analyses will include light microscopy, immunohistochemistry, immunoblot analysis of signaling proteins, and assays for metabolic function.

Plant Adaptation to Stressful Environments Mentor: Dr. Stephen Davis Native plants that blanket the hillsides of Pepperdine's campus in Malibu are usually adapted to survive stressful conditions, but tolerance levels have recently been exceeded. Students in this seminar will undertake authentic scholarly research on one of the most pressing questions

concerning our future well-being in California; will plant adaptations be sufficient to withstand climate change?

Invasive Predators and Amphibian Decline Mentor: Dr. Lee Kats Invasive species can harm native amphibians by competing for resources, transmitting disease, hybridizing, or through direct predation on adults, eggs, or larvae. Students in this seminar will investigate the role of invasive predators in

amphibian decline, specifically in freshwater streams of the Santa Monica Mountains of southern California, near Malibu.

Genetics of Animal and Plant Populations Mentor: Dr. Rodney Honeycutt Students will focus their research on the use of genetic markers to aid in the conservation of biological organisms and learn the basic tools of conservation genetics including DNA extraction, PCR amplification, sequencing, genotyping, and data analysis. Students in this seminar will choose from several on-going projects related to plant and animal populations in the Santa Monica Mountains as well as the Channel Islands off the coast of Malibu.

FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AS SCHOLARS

Seminars in Biology that Engage First-year Students in the

Creation of New Knowledge

SEMINAR OPTIONS Website: http://seaver.pepperdine.edu/naturalscience/student-opportunities/sas

First-year Students as Scholars Seminars in Biology that Engage First-year Students in the Creation of New Knowledge

Often students begin college with the goal of simply being consumers of knowledge; in the biology seminars listed on the back, students will transcend this notion by developing the skills and confidence to create new knowledge with faculty mentors. The primary objective of Students as Scholars (SAS) Seminars is to engage biology majors in authentic research and the scholarly process. A secondary goal of these seminars is to inform students of the many options in biology and the rationale for the basic scientific skills learned in conventional introductory courses such as biology, chemistry, math, and physics. By the end of the first semester, students will realize the power of the scientific method, the excitement of scientific discovery, and the thrill of sharing personal research findings with a broader audience. SAS-seminars will be process-rich, focused on student engagement in scholarly research whereas conventional introductory science courses will be content-rich focused on acquiring the basic tools and theory necessary for scholarly research.