IMS_Blog

Doug Natelson over at Nanoscale Views makes good points on lab habits (particularly the first four points on his list). It’s sort of what I was getting at here (could have sworn I’d touched on the topic more extensively but I can find no trace…and don’t have any notes).

I still think this is one of the hardest things to convey to undergraduate science students (and, yes, probably guilty as charged myself your honour). The number of times I’ve seen undergrads present their “lab book” for examination, all very neat and tidy. When questioned they inevitably say something like “Oh, I wrote it up neatly later.” Getting them to understand that no one is going to take marks away for an untidy, scribbled on, complete with crossing out book seems impossible. I’ve always thought a useful exercise would be to something like having them try and write it up months later, or better, perhaps the first task of second year should be to repeat an early first year lab experiment with no guidance other than their own notes from doing it…

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I’ve been quite remiss of late in getting project 365 photos uploaded. Fear not though, for it is ongoing, pushing well into the two-hundreds by now. And I’ve just managed to upload about a month’s worth…Thumbs after the fold

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