Acing Organismal Lab Practicals

I have always been an organismal/zoology girl through and through. My brain absorbs fun facts like a sponge so those types of lectures really stick for me. However, I struggled with the labs at first. I do really well in micro and molecular bio labs and even chemistry and physics but organismal labs were not my thing. But since my first organismal class, I have learned techniques that took me from tanking lab practicals to acing them.

First, if you’ve never taken an organismal class before, I’ll go over what to expect in general. Each lab will be dedicated to certain taxa and you will observe the organisms of that taxa. The time spent in the lab will be mainly drawing and labeling the specimen in your lab notebook and dissecting. Most of the specimens you will encounter will be preserved wet specimens which sucks because most wet specimens look like indistinguishable mush. Grading is usually made up of the lab notebook, 2 practicals, and “participation” (which is usually just attendance). Some labs have quizzes in between lab practicals but I wouldn’t count on it.

Lab practicals are exams that test the skills you have learned in lab. This is different than a lecture exam that tests your knowledge. Practical questions often have physical components. In organismal labs, you may be presented with a specimen and asked to identify its taxonomy. Or you may be presented with a disected animal (that you have dissected in a previous lab) and asked to identify a part of their anatomy (name,what its function is, etc.). It can be very overwhelming to discover just how much information students are expected to know.

So now for my strategies to get an A. First things first, You’re going to need to read the lab manual. This may seem silly and obvious but you’d be surprised how many people decide not to or stop reading it half way through the quarter or semester. So before every lab, read the lab. There are usually instructions on activities you’ll be doing that day and information that will be crucial to knowing for the exams on the animals you are observing that day. It will hint at features to look out for so you will want to be familiar with the vocab and be prepared before you actually see the animal. It will make everything make way more sense if you already have some base knowledge (even if that knowledge doesn’t make much sense before you go to lab, it will still help the connections in your brain be made). Hopefully your lectures and labs will be pretty synched to where you are learning about the taxa inlecture before seeing them in the lab which will help with this too, but unfortunately lectures don’t always stay on schedule so reading the lab is the best way to prepare. If possible, you can set up your lab notebook before going to class but that depends on how well your lab sticks to the scheduled activities because in my experience, the lab manual is more of a suggested outline than anything and you won’t do every activity planned. But don’t let that persuade you into not reading your manual!!

Once you are in the lab, PARTICIPATE. So many people speed run the lab and just take pictures of everything to immediately leave but considering the lab score averages, I have a feeling most of those people didn’t do so hot. There is a reason that organismal labs make us draw so much. It might seem silly and annoying to have to draw dozens of seemingly very similar little guys but drawing forces you to pay attention to details and notice the differences that you might not have seen by just looking at them or at a picture. Drawing and labeling makes you understand. So many people say that organismal biology is 100% memorization and although I agree memorization plays a huge role due to terminology and taxonomy, but if you rely entirely on memorization then you will not do as well as people who choose to understand what is actually being taught. Be curious. Wonder what the purpose of each lab is and what the author of the lab wants you to discover. The depth at which you learn is in your hands so it is up to you to spend time with each specimen and ask questions while it is in front of you. Take as many pictures as possible of each specimen and dissection for later studying.

After you spend as much time as possible learning the material in person, the deeper understanding comes with studying at home. There have been many times where I did not understand the material until revisiting it multiple times, so don't let the difficulty of the material at first intimidate you. Using the pictures I take in lab, I make a Google Doc of every photo I take labeled by lab. I label each photo with the taxonomy expected for me to know and every piece of information related to it from the lab manual. Keeping this master document updated throughout the course keeps me accountable in my study process and allows me to look at any material with a quick search. Then, I make flashcards. I used to be pretty anti-flashcards but I cannot deny their helpfulness in these memorization-heavy courses. Digital flashcards are my go-to. I use GoodNotes to add each picture I took to the "front" of the card and the taxonomy and information written in the master document on the "back." Then I pretend it's a game! If you have someone else to quiz you it can be easier to keep yourself accountable, but if you don't, write your answers on a piece of paper before revealing the answer to help you remember (and it also helps with spelling!). With dissection anatomy, I use my iPad to annotate the pictures of dissected specimens with the parts described in detail in the lab manual and the functions of each part. If you do not have an iPad, draw out the animal by memory and annotate your drawing. Continue doing this until you can remember each part of the animal's anatomy without getting any wrong. It will be time-consuming and frustrating but very rewarding.

The more time you spend with the material, the less it becomes memorization and the more it becomes pattern recognition. Similar to learning a language, you will start feeling fluent in taxonomy and anatomy. I hope some of these tips were helpful to your preparation in acing an organismal lab practical.