About This Project

The field of biology may be advancing by leaps and bounds but the resources for students to access these new findings are growing at a glacial pace. Tools that help students explore the living world are often very expensive, where technologies like bioreactors are extremely cost prohibitive. This project aims to address this gap in access by developing an open source, low-cost microbial experimental evolution platform made from off the shelf components and easily printed parts.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Evolution is one of the most amazing triumphs of the living world. The concept and process of heritable change has fascinated humanity since Darwin's Origin of Species and many have dedicated their lives to study this incredible phenomena. One such person, Richard Lenski, devised a simple yet ingenious experiment to observe this change across time - the LTEE ( Long Term Experimental Evolution). This experiment has been running non-stop since 1988 and has taught us valuable lessons in the speed, frequency, and general trajectories of microbial evolution. Lenski only tested a handful of parameters in a single species of microbe. What new wonders could we learn if we enable students to explore the LTEE using new organisms and experimental conditions?

What is the significance of this project?

Despite the decades of research into the nature and mechanisms of evolution, the ability to teach the subject in a manner that is engaging, convincing, and retains the student's interest, remains challenging for educators. There're mountains of evidence educators can pull from when showing examples of evolution, but there's nothing quite like hands-on learning to solidify concepts in a student's mind. Having the opportunity to design experiments which demonstrate the process of adaptation by natural selection throughout a school semester, where the conditions are unique to the student's curiosity, is something worth exploring. There are more questions than stars in the universe. Why not leverage educational experiences to explore further?

What are the goals of the project?

Will students gain greater comprehension of evolution by engaging with open source tools that automate the LTEE process?

The goal of this project is to see if enabling students to test their own evolutionary hypotheses in a hands-on manner will result in deeper learning about the living world. To do this I will develop a modular open source hardware platform, the EasyEVO, and provide prototypes to a group of educators to help develop open curricular modules for the classroom. The robot will allow students to easily grow microbes and evolve them in an automated manner to adapt to new conditions over long periods of time.