Biology Department Facilities
The Biology Department's main facilities are located on the third floor of the A Building of Lakeland. Classrooms are interspersed with those of the chemistry, physics, and math departments.
Physical Facilities:
Lab Rooms
The Biology Department has six laboratory rooms available for its classes. Four of the laboratories are located on the third floor of Building A. The laboratories are arranged in pods of two separated by a preparation (prep) room.
Five of the lab rooms (A3005, A3007, A3022, A3024, and A3025) each contain six student islands (standing/stool height) accommodating four students each. These contain cabinets and drawers for common lab items used by all students. The microbiology lab (A3005) and cell biology lab (A3007) have sinks, water, and natural gas connections for use by the students. All five labs have microscope cabinets in the lab for storage of the student microscopes. The sixth lab (A3027) has standard height (low) tables designed for microscope work. This room is used for general biology courses and majors biology courses and is still shared with a criminalistics course. Microscopes for this room and additional demonstration scopes are stored in the adjacent prep room (A3026).
Each lab is stocked with the equipment for the courses typically scheduled there. For instance, in A3022, natural bone specimens are stored in lockable drawers and cabinets in the student islands for BIO 246. This method of storage has been found to provide superior availability and cause less damage through use and handling than storage as traditionally done.
To facilitate laboratory preparations and assure materials needed in a particular course are close at hand, all sections of a course are scheduled in the same laboratory room. Several different courses may utilize the same laboratory room in a given quarter. Every effort is now made to schedule only the microbiology courses in A3005. Other courses sometimes use specimens that can cause contamination of the microbiology exercises resulting in erroneous results and wasted lab time. The prep room adjacent to the microbiology laboratory houses two steam autoclaves for sterilizing media and equipment. Incubators, a refrigerator, freezer, and fume hood as well as media, chemicals, and supplies for preparing and maintaining live bacterial cultures are also housed here.
Greenhouse
The Biology Department has a greenhouse that is behind the prep room (A3026) and adjacent Biology Laboratories on the south-facing side of Building A, where the Botany (BIO 173) and Introduction to Plant Biology (BIO 125) courses are taught. The superstructure is constructed of aluminum, while some of the supporting structure is of galvanized iron. The roof and sides are made of glass which has good light transmission and is permanent under most conditions There is a manual and an automatic roof vent for temperature control during warm weather. Side vents may be opened manually during hot weather for additional cooling. Through the winter, the greenhouse is heated by hot water that is pumped through perimeter-mounted fin tubing. A shade cloth covers the top and sides to reduce the amount of light to those plants that are sensitive to excess levels of light.
The greenhouse allows plants to be grown out of season and maintenance of a collection of other plants that would normally not grow in a temperate climate. Plants grown include foliage plants, flowering plants, succulents (thick, juicy stems or leaves), agricultural crops and specialized plants as the Wisconsin Fast Plants® or Ward's Rapid radishes. These plants are used as demonstration materials for lab exercises in most Biology courses. The specialized plants are used in the Botany and Plant Science courses to show a complete life cycle in 30 days. These plants are purchased locally or through biological supply houses. Seeds are planted as required for classroom/laboratory use. The College greenhouse, therefore, provides a very useful and practical learning environment to our students allowing them to study the book-learned knowledge of soil science, plant nutrition, plant propagation, plant identification and watering and drainage while experiencing the living nature of biology--the study of living things.
Outdoor Nature Areas
The outdoor world is exciting, inspiring, and constantly changing. It is a learning climate offering opportunities for direct laboratory experiences in identifying and resolving real-life problems, for acquiring skills, and to gain a perspective on the human role in the Biosphere. The Lakeland Campus and surrounding communities offer a variety of natural areas for educational enrichment. The diverse natural areas close to campus are owned and operated by groups such as The Holden Arboretum, The State Parks of Ohio, The Lake Metroparks System, The Cuyahoga County Metroparks, and the City of Mentor. These areas are heavily used by all instructors of General Biology-Ecology and Environmental Biology (BIO 110). Instructors of the Botany (BIO 173) and Plant Biology (BIO 125) courses also use these areas as appropriate.
In recent years, Don Rubbelke, Brent DeMars, and Susan Wadkowski have explored and studied the approximately 400 acre Lakeland campus for the availability and useability of natural areas on campus. The diverse settings on campus include forest areas, low lying wetlands, a river, ravines, creeks, fields, and horticultural plantings. Several areas are being used; others need to be developed, mostly for accessibility. A request, which has been incorporated into the college master land use plan, has been made to establish and develop walking trails and natural study areas. One such area would involve mowing plots on several acres of land near I90 and Garfield Road on a several year rotation. This would show succession in biological communities and allow students to do sampling transects and other studies. A proposed shelter in the same area would serve as a covered outdoor instruction room during inclement weather and for equipment storage. Development of the campus natural areas would provide a readily accessible resource, save travel time for students, and admission expenses for the department.