If you are a student of biology then this book will be an indispensable companion throughout your entire degree programme. It clearly explains the laboratory and field skills that you will draw on time and again for the practical aspects of your studies, and also gives you a solid grounding in those wider transferable skills which are increasingly necessary to achieve a higher level of academic success.
Study and examination skills
1. The importance of transferable skills
2. Managing your time
3. Working with others
4. Taking notes from lectures and texts
5. Learning effectively
6. Revision strategies
7. Assignments and exams
8. Preparing your curriculum vitae
Information technolgoy and learning resources
9. Finding and citing published information
10. Evaluating information
11. Using online resources
12. Using word processors, databases and other packages
13. Using spreadsheets
Communicating information
14. Organising a poster display
15. Giving a spoken presentation
16. General aspects of scientific writing
17. Writing essays
18. Reporting practical and project work
19. Writing literature surveys and reviews
Fundamental laboratory techniques
20. Essentials of practical work
21. Bioethics
22. Health and safety
23. Working with liquids
24. Basic laboratory procedures
25. Principles of solution chemistry
26. pH and buffer solutions
The investigative approach
27. The principles of measurement
28. SI units and their use
29. Making observations
30. Drawings and diagrams
31. Basic fieldwork procedures
32. Samples and sampling
33. Scientific method and design of experiments
34. Making notes of practical work
35. Project work
Obtaining and identifying specimens
36. Collecting animals and plants
37. Fixing and preserving animals and plants
38. Collecting and isolating microbes
39. Naming and classifying organisms
40. Identifying plants and animals
41. Identifying microbes
Examining specimens and samples
42. The purpose and practice of dissection
43. Introduction to microscopy
44. Preparing specimens for light microscopy
45. Setting up and using a light microscope
46. Interpreting microscope images
47. Sterile technique
48. Cell culture
49. Working with animal and plant tissues and cells
50. Photography and imaging
51. Measuring growth and responses
52. Fundamentals of chemical analysis
53. Calibration and quantitative analysis
Environmental investigations
54. Ecological analyses
55. Analysis of aquatic environments
56. Analysis of soils and sediments
57. Measuring atmospheric variables
58. Measuring light
Advanced analytical techniques
59. Immunological methods
60. Enzyme studies
61. Mendelian genetics
62. Fundamental molecular biology techniques
63. Using stable isotopes
64. Using radioisotopes
65. Measuring oxygen content
66. Photosynthesis and respiration
67. Centrifugation
68. Spectroscopic techniques
69. Chromatography
70. Electrophoresis
Analysis and presentation of data
71. Manipulating and transforming raw data
72. Using graphs
73. Present
