The Biological Sciences Resource Center (BSRC) at Iowa State will open Monday for its second semester as an educational tool for students in the biological sciences.

The BSRC was opened during the spring semester of 1997, offering evening tutoring and workshops for students in biological sciences classes, especially Biology 201 and 202, which are introductory biology courses, Christine Minor, a lab instructor in biology and supervisor of the facility, said. It will open again on Monday, Sept. 8 at 6 pm.

It was Minor who originally developed the idea for the BSRC. She said she wanted to start the BSRC because for years students would come to her and to biology teaching assistants with questions and problems which weren’t being effectively answered, she said.

“They needed some place to come to where they could get their questions answered on content, on homework and on a wide variety of topics in biology,” Minor said.

“One of our biggest emphases is on scientific writing. Students really and truly struggle with scientific writing.

“So when I originally thought about the center, I thought about a Scientific Writing Center. And then the more I thought about that, the more I realized that the students had needs beyond just the scientific writing.”

In December of 1996, Minor submitted a grant to ISU’s Professional and Scientific Council to obtain startup funds for the BSRC. She received them and since then, additional money has come from the Howard Hughes Undergraduate Initiative fund, which funds a lot of undergraduate education programs in the biological sciences, she said.

One on One Help

The BSRC has three permanent staff members, all undergraduate students, who are available to help students in any area of the biological sciences, including computer literacy and career planning, Richard Mergen, a zoology major and manager of the BSRC, said.

The staff will help students one on one.

“It is different than a help session,” Mergen said.

“In a help session, there is one person with a class full of kids. This is one staff member for one student,” he said.

When there are more students than staff, the staff members try to divide their time to give each student personal attention, Mergen said.

Mergen said another benefit of the BSRC is the staff is always the same.

In this way, the staff can develop good working relationships with students over a period of time.

Minor expects more students to utilize the BSRC this semester. There is a larger pool of students to draw from, she said.

In addition, computers and other equipment have been upgraded to make the operation of the center easier for students.

The BSRC will offer an evening workshop on scientific writing some time during the fall semester, Mergen said.

The workshop is very popular among students.

“It’s packed, because [students] have never done it before in high school,” Mergen said.

“A lot of stress is placed on the proper scientific way to write a paper, and so they get all nervous about it and they want to make sure they do it the right way. They have never had that format before, so they come and take advantage of it,” he said.

The BSRC has offered other workshops in the past, but some of them had low attendance, Mergen said.

As a result, the scientific writing workshop is the only planned workshop for this semester.

If there is demand for workshops in other areas, more may be offered.

A lot to offer

Because it is a resource center, a computer and printer are available, with access to the Internet and all of the biology files which are in the Biology computer room in Bessey Hall.

The BSRC also contains many biology books and a file is kept containing homework, past tests and study guides from the faculty teaching biology courses.

There is also information on general college survival skills, Minor said.

Staff will teach computer literacy skills such as using programs and surfing the Internet, Mergen said. One area of difficulty for students is the use of the Cricket Graph computer program.

“A lot of students have never used Cricket Graph before,” he said. “It’s very easy, but they have never used it. So we make sure that all our staff go through Cricket Graph and understand it, because we get a lot of students in with that,” he said.

Mergen said genetics is a subject of major concern to students, so the staff are well trained in this particular area, too.

“We don’t write papers for people, and we don’t give the answers to people,” Mergen said.

“If they have questions or they don’t understand a concept, we try to lead them in the right direction to find it out for themselves,” he said.

The goal of the BSRC is to increase the success of students in biology classes and to prevent students from being scared away from the biological sciences as a possible major, Mergen said.

“When you come to Iowa State University and you get put into a fast paced, intensive biology course that has a lab to go along with it and you have to do scientific writing, and you weren’t exposed to a great deal of it in high school, it can be very intimidating,” Mergen said.

“I think the main purpose of this was to try to ease students into biology and try to keep them in biology,” he said.

Come early and often

During midterms and dead week, the BSRC is in great demand, Mergen said. He recommends not waiting until the last minute to get help.

“This center is open every day except Tuesday night all semester long,” Mergen said.

“So come early, start soon and come regularly. Even if it is just once a week, if that is all you have time for.

“We are very busy dead week, so if you want individualized help and you are expecting a great deal of it during dead week, you aren’t going to get as much of it as you would if you came early,” he said.

Regular attendance helps to build familiarity between the staff and students, Mergen said.

To gauge the effectiveness of the BSRC, a log is kept of the number of students who come through the center, what courses they seek help in, what their concerns are, and whether or not they were satisfied with the help they got, Minor said.

This information is also used to give feedback to faculty and TAs in biology courses if any patterns of difficulty are observed, she said.

If students can’t be helped at the BSRC, the staff will refer students to other possible sources of help.

The BSRC is located in Room 157 Bessey Hall.

The BSRC will be open in the evenings from 6 to 9 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and from 9 am to 3 pm on Fridays.