Math 122 - Calculus for Biology II
Fall Semester, 2010
Computer Lab Guidelines

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San Diego State University -- This page last updated 02-Sep-10

Laboratory Guidelines

This page has been created to provide you with guidelines for what is expected in your laboratory write-ups. The computer labs are designed to advance your educational experience in several ways. The primary purpose of the labs is to use the computer to connect the mathematical concepts of Calculus and dynamical systems to biological problems. The computer allows you to work more complicated problems that are based on real biological situations.

One secondary purpose of the labs is given by the educational goals stated by both the California State University administration and the College of Sciences at SDSU. They include the need of students to work on interdisciplinary problems in a team setting. Thus, my labs are meant to be worked together, so you will need to learn how to work with a stranger much as you might on a project in the "real world" of employment. The ability to work with others has not been something that Universities have done much in the past, but it is crucial to the advancement of science for the future. (This experience is often much more difficult to negotiate than students imagine, but it can be very rewarding.)

The Computer Labs are accessed through WeBWork. Many of the numerical values and formulae are answered directly into WeBWork. These answers will need to be accurate (0.1% relative error for most answers), but you will have multiple attempts to solve them. The WeBWork answers will be approximately 60% of the grade on your lab. The remaining 40% is written in a Lab report and includes graphs and paragraphs answering essay questions. The WeBWork questions should state clearly what is expected to be answered in the Lab report.

A major goal of these lab reports is the improvement of your technical writing skills. You are expected to write clear succinct answers to the laboratory questions and develop professional looking work in your presentations. These skills are important in any career that you may choose. (Learning how to write well and presenting material in a professional manner is one of the most important skills that you will take from your college education. The teamwork helps to develop good working relationships for sharing knowledge, which is invaluable in future employment and scientific learning.) You will find that if you take a little more time early in the semester to develop good habits and use the proper tools, then it will save you time (and points) in the long run over the semester. Above anything else, do not be afraid to ask questions of me or the other students. Cooperative learning is part of the lab experience.

Below I want to highlight some of my expectations of your lab write-up.

  1. Several parts of the WeBWork questions will state that you are to write a description or discussion in your Lab report. Answer each of these questions using clear, grammatically correct, and complete sentences.
  2. You may want to copy the parts of the questions that require a written response, but it is also sufficient to simply label your answer something like 2. e. (if you are answering Question 2. e.).
  3. Follow any specific instructions posted on the Help sheet for each lab, and answer all questions fully. Most deductions in the past have come from incomplete answers. You will be graded on grammar and spelling along with the quality of your argument.
  4. Take advantage of special features, such as Equation Editor in Word, to improve the appearance of your lab report.
  5.  Start your labs early and ask questions either in class or by email to make sure you do not waste time on some problem that is easily resolvable. (Occasionally, errors are made on the labs questions and information or hints will be posted as soon as possible on the web.)

A major part of the lab is using the computer to produce quality graphs. The primary graphing tool that we will be using this semester is Excel. Excel was designed to make it very easy to produce good looking graphs for business materials. (This does create some problems for scientific studies.) It is easy to edit the graphs and produce very professional looking results. Below are some comments about graphing with Excel.

  1. Your graphs should be a minimum of 3 inches in height and 4 inches in width (the actual graphs, not the window), i.e., do not use the default size in Excel. The graphs should be clear and readable to demonstrate the results being exhibited in the problem.
  2. You will almost always need to adjust the interval of the domain on your graph. When an interval is specified for a particular graph, then adjust the axes to match the requested interval. For example, when I ask for x in the interval [-5,5], then Excel will usually default to either [-6,6] or [-10,10]. You will have to override the default by scaling the x -axis to [-5,5]. (Double clicking on either axis gives you lots of options for editing, with which you should become familiar.)
  3. Always use points or markers (diamonds, circles, triangles, etc.) to represent actual data. (If points alone are insufficiently clear, then you can use points connected by lines.) For theoretical curves and standard graphs of functions, you should only use lines (with only a few exceptions such as discrete dynamical systems, which we will be studying).
  4. When graphing a function, you should use about 50 points from the spreadsheet. (This will automatically occur if you take advantage of the graphing template.) An obvious exception is when you are graphing straight lines.
  5. You should never have the label "Series 1" appear on the graph. Either you remove the label, such as when there is only a single graph on the sheet (which will be covered in the title), or you adjust the labels to describe the graphs they are labeling. All graphs with multiple entries need to have each entry labeled using either the legend or a title next to the appropiate graph.
  6. Label your axes and give your graph a title. Be sure that the labels match the variables and descriptions of the problem.
  7. Grid your graphs with both horizontal and vertical grids, so that you have good references with which to compare.
  8. When using the Trendline function, you will always want to use the option of putting the equation on the chart, but we do not want to see the R2 value for this course. Most of the time you will need to edit the equation after Excel has put it on your graph. Most of the time you will need to convert the coefficients in front of the variables to scientific notation with 4-5 decimal places of accuracy. (Excel likes to round off the most significant digits found for the mathematical models.) In addition, you will want to change the default x and y to the variables that are in your problem.
  9. If you are uncertain of what is being requested, then be sure to ask! One guideline of how your graphs should appear is for you to try to get them to look like the ones in my lecture notes. 

Hopefully, the list above will make it clear what is expected of your laboratory reports. I believe that the skills you develop in the lab will be the most important ones that you will take with you from this course.