Examining the Effectiveness of a Collaborative Laboratory Activity on College Students’ Sense of Community

Research suggests that college students who feel a sense of community with their peers are more likely to earn higher grades and report positive perceptions of their overall academic experience. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting institutional changes to class schedules have decreased opportunities for students to build a sense of community within their major. To compensate for this division and build a more robust scientific community, we developed a laboratory activity connecting first-year introductory biology students with second-year organic chemistry students. The laboratory activity teaches students how to use indicators as a signifier of enzyme activity on a colorimetric assay. After a lesson on catalase catalysis, introductory biology students will complete an activity following Beer’s Law to measure catalase activity. These students will then join a group of second-year organic chemistry students to propose a source of dietary flavonoid, which are potential inhibitors of catalase activity. Based on their proposals, organic chemistry students will determine methods of flavonoid extraction, extract the compounds, and return the extracts to the biology students, who will perform the colorimetric assay. The results of the assay will be shared between classes. Immediately before and after the activity, all participants will take a questionnaire measuring (1) a sense of academic community, (2) academic resilience, (3) scientific identity, and (4) project ownership. We predict that students in an experimental group will report higher scores than those in comparable control groups, where there is no collaboration between upper- and lower-level students. Results will be reported as an academic poster.