Achievement

The first Biogeochemistry Bootcamp, at the Microbial scale, was held as a 1-credit short-course (CEE 6055) during spring 2013. It included nine students (8 women) from a range of backgrounds, and aimed to familiarize those without background in microbial methods with modern molecular biological techniques for characterizing and quantifying key nucleic acid and proteins. The course also gave students hands-on experience with nucleic acid extraction from pure culture and, ultimately, soil samples from a stormwater detention basin,Students gained experience applying DNA/RNA quantification, gel electrophoresis, PCR and qPCR data generation and analysis. The focus in this bootcamp was on genes that code for enzymes that produce and destroy the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.