Biophysics in the Undergraduate Curriculum

Abstract

A new active-learning pedagogy is presented that includes computation as a central theme. The approach starts with the "marble game", a kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of diffusion. Students first learn how to play the game by hand and then implement it in Excel to discover that Fick's law of diffusion can be explained by random jumping between two boxes. In a guided-inquiry environment, students apply the same techniques to drug elimination, radioactive decay, osmosis, ligand binding, enzyme kinetics, and ion channel permeation. Students discover for themselves the consequences and significance of model assumptions by reading and interpreting graphs, and by comparing model predictions with real data using linear regression and non-linear least-squares fits. The pedagogical objective is for students to discover for themselves that science is an evidence-based endeavor with testable hypotheses that are supported by experiment.