Welcome to your brand new blog at blogs.baylor.edu.

BEARS in the SEA stands for Biology Education and Research Students in the Science Education Alliance!  You are part of the SEA PHAGES program, which stands for Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science.  So many letters for a great educational experience! The purpose of this blog is to provide you with an online notebook.

Lab notebooks are an essential part of learning authentic scientific skills.  Notebook are the official and legal documents for all scientific discoveries.  You will need to keep a hand-written account of all that you do in lab, using a bound notebook (not a spiral or loose-leaf paper or paper towel or post-it…) that is dedicated to only the lab.  It should be written with pen, not pencil, and pages should never be removed.  This hand-written notebook is your official lab notebook and you are responsible for keeping up with it.

The blog is a public record of what is in your notebook, with the added function of including your pictures and images and comments from other team members or people that have read your blog.  It should be written clearly (never post an image of what you have written), and in a professional manner so that someone could replicate what you did in your research. The reflection on and the recording of what you did in lab is a productive activity and this process often reveals mistakes and new ideas.

The blog will be due each week as a pdf download that you submit to a Canvas assignment. You should also make a folder on your computer to archive your blog for your own personal academic portfolio.