Using Zebrafish in a Developmental Biology Lab Course to Explore Interactions Between Development and the Environment

Important learning outcomes for biology students include the ability to develop experiments as well as pull together concepts across their coursework. The field of developmental biology, especially environmental influences on development (eco-devo), provides a framework for connecting concepts including tissue dynamics, cell signaling, and physiology. An eco-devo framework also provides opportunities for experiments that are relevant to student interests and/or experiences by encompassing topics such as the impact of environmental contamination or maternal health on development. Here we present a guided course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) for students to work with zebrafish embryos as a foundation for the design and execution of their own novel research project. The guided experiment that is performed first in this lesson explores how the weed killer atrazine might affect development of zebrafish, even though atrazine would not be expected to impact animals. The student-developed independent experiment is planned during the guided experiment and then performed in subsequent weeks by students in the second part of this lesson. The independent experiment allows students to investigate a research question related to their own interests. These experiments can be modified for a variety of courses depending on the instructor’s curriculum, time constraints, and goals for the experiment. Students are particularly engaged in the lesson because it enables them to investigate their ideas and interests. Citation: Cresiski RH, Lenkowski JR. 2020. Using zebrafish in a developmental biology lab course to explore interactions between development and the environment. CourseSource. https:// doi.org/10.24918/cs.2020. 20 Editor: William J. Anderson, Harvard University Received: 7/7/2019; Accepted: 5/12/2020; Published: 7/20/2020 Copyright: © 2020 Cresiski and Lenkowski. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Conflict of Interest and Funding Statement: None of the authors has a financial, personal, or professional conflict of interest related to this work. Supporting Materials: Supporting Files S1. Eco Devo Zfish – Required supplies and reagent protocols; S2. Eco Devo Zfish – Handout 1. Student instructions for guided experiment; S3. Eco Devo Zfish – Handout 2. Reference links for stages of embryonic development of the zebrafish, software, imaging methods and measurements; S4. Eco Devo Zfish – Handout 3. Fixation protocol; S5. Eco Devo Zfish. – Handout 4. Independent experiment basic guidelines; S6. Eco Devo Zfish – Handout 5. Using ImageJ to analyze images; S7. Eco Devo Zfish – Planning calendar for independent experiment; S8. Eco Devo Zfish – Lecture slides. Background on atrazine; S9. Eco Devo Zfish – Screenshots of shared online spreadsheet; and S10. Eco Devo Zfish – Sample rubrics. *Correspondence to: Goucher College, 1021 Dulaney Valley Rd, Baltimore, MD, 21204. Email: jenny.lenkowski@goucher.edu CourseSource | www.coursesource. org 2020 | Volume 07 1 Lesson