What are the science labs like?

puertorican0027 · Jul 9, 2007

Well I took Micro this past Spring and the labs were doing things. For instance in one of our labs we had to determined what had more bacteria in something..bacterias vs. fungi diseases and other things. I am not going to sugar coat it and tell you it is easy because it is not easy you have to be there for every class and make sure you take a lot of NOTES. Good Luck! I am taking chemistry b/c at our college you can not take Micro and A&P at the same time.

miss rochelle · Jul 9, 2007

this is what i remember:

for A&PI, we mainly got to study models of muscles, and also study real bone specimens.

for A&PII, the *big* lab for us was dissection of a fetal pig and identifying organ systems, arteries, veins, etc.

for micro, we first started off with learning how to do our labwork in an aspectic manner, then we just started growing things on plates (or petri dishes as commonly referred to). later on we applied these techniques to be able to identify several types of microorgansims. imo, the labs were really fun.! the *big* lab was identifying an unknown bacterium using only what you knew about the gram pos/gram neg bacteria.

*Blessed2BaNRS* · Jul 10, 2007

Hi Carmen,

In A&P, we mainly looked at models and specimens of the human body. We had bones, preserved specimens, plastic models. Unfortunately, we did not get to do any dissection except for a bovine eyeball! But we learned how to take blood pressure, how to compute ABG's, how to read ECG's, etc. A&P II was more interesting to learn (IMO) but A&P I is where we got to do the dissection.

Micro, on the other hand, was full of hands on activities! I really loved being in Micro lab since we got to do so much more than in A&P! We first learned how to keep specimens sterile and how to do aeseptic transfers, then we got to actually grow bacteria and organisms. We got to learn how to read if something was positive or negative for various organisms, then near the end of the semester, we were given 2 vials which were "unknowns" and we had to take what we learned all semester and figure out what was in the vials!! I guarentee that by the time you are finished with Micro, you will never look at a salad bar or a kitchen sponge the same way again!!! :lol2: AND, you will be able to follow along with shows like House and CSI and be able to know what they are talking about when they mention Serratia and Pseudomonas and C diff!!! Good luck~

donsterRN, ASN, BSN · Jul 10, 2007

I loved my labs! Lots of activity with microscopes, and dissections. We dissected a cat (thought I'd have difficulty, but it was OK), and a brain, and a heart, and an eye, and other stuff I don't remember. We did our own blood and urine testing, EKGs, lung volumes, etc. We had a lot of fun. It's really nothing to be feared. Do you have your lab manuals yet? That's a great place to start seeing what you'll be doing. Attendance is really important, so just decide that you're going to know it and like it; you won't be sorry. Have fun!

coolpeach · Jul 10, 2007

In A & P we skinned and dissected a ton of cats. We also dissected a cow eyeball, pig lung, and sheep brain. In addition we took notes, quizzes, and did other experiements, put together models and studied models.

In micro we spent our time learning to grow, transfer, and kill bacteria, fungi, and mold. Our big project of the semester was fun (NOT). The professor gave us a unnamed bacteria which we had to correctly grow, transfer several times, and eventually research and name correctly based on what we had learned.

LMRN10 · Jul 10, 2007

Micro was all bacteria. We learned how to gram stain slides and also how to determine what different bacteria's are from doing different tests on them. My advice to you is to write down everything (bacteria color, results of the tests you run for the bacteria you used)...we were able to use our notes for our Lab Final.

I thought A&P was a bit harder (but I LOVED the class). We mainly used models of bones, muscles, organs, etc... to learn...it was challenging because you really had to know just about every part of the body. A lot of studying...have people quiz you...my husband quizzed me and it helped a lot! Lab tests were hard at my school...no multiple choice. You had to know everything off the top of your head! My teacher didn't take off for misspelling, but I know some teachers did.

Good luck!

HeatherB,CST · Jul 10, 2007

I'm excited to take mine...a friend said in her A&P class she dissected a pregnant cat and saw 5 teeny tiny kitten fetuses! I think that would be very cool to see. We did a fetal pig in high school and now I realize that was a really cool opportunity that I blew for myself because (this was 20 years ago) I decided it would be more fun to take the opportunity to be a drama queen and go into crying hysterics over the poor dead piglet...:trout: So glad I've grown up a bit since then!

goldenscroll · Jul 10, 2007

The classes sound a lot more interesting than I thought they would. i have never had a problem disecting anything, although a frog is as much as I have ever had to do. Frogs and worms. lol oh, wait, I think we did some sea animal...cant recall which...

winterbot428 · Jul 10, 2007

Those science labs were awful fun for me. I volunteered to help keep the lab open for extended study times and it made all the difference in passing those classes. I had many different study partners and got to study everything till I had it down cold.

CRNA2BKY · Jul 10, 2007

In my A&P I and II, we had 6 human cadavers to explore. Out of about 80 students in my class, I was only 1 of about 4 people to make "A's" in both I & II. I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree, so I had to do lots of extra studying. I had both these classes in 5-week summer sessions, back to back. During my free time, I spent countless extra hours in the lab, usually by myself, looking at the cadavers and microscope slides, to really learn the stuff. All the extra time I spent in the lab paid off. So, if I can make a recommedation, spend extra time in the lab, because there really is tons of stuff to learn, and it is so hard to learn it all in the given class time. Good luck.