Facilitators: 

• Ellen Dow, KBase—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
• Julia Kelliher, NMDC—Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Description: 

This workshop is sponsored by the KBase Educators Program. 

If you are interested in incorporating bioinformatics or data science concepts into a course, or working with students on data that are immediately publishable, then this workshop is for you! The workshop focuses on collecting and analyzing microbial data and metadata with the free, open source tools through the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC; microbiomedata.org) and KBase (kbase.us) platforms, outlining a workflow that results in a publishable genomic dataset for an ASM Microbiology Resource Announcement.  

This workshop will provide examples of how educators use NMDC and KBase with their students, in a variety of courses ranging from CUREs to independent research. Together, we will go through steps for analyzing a genomic dataset and identify the importance of collecting and processing good sample metadata along the way. Participants will be introduced to the NMDC Field Notes mobile app and resources for collecting environmental sample metadata and to resources from MICROnet (NSF #2418285; bit.ly/MICROnet) and KBase Educators Program (bit.ly/kbase-edu), which provide teaching materials and template workflows to analyze raw sequence data and prepare students for their first data publication. Everyone will have access to these tools and resources after the workshop to use with their students and adapt for future use!  

For questions, please contact Ellen Dow.  

Target Audience:

Relevant for educators who want to integrate (new, more, any) environmental microbiome (microbiology) tools and resources into their courses, include best practices in sample collection, incorporate skills in computational biology and bioinformatics data analysis, provide support for student-curated data publications or change up existing course-based undergraduate research experiences.

Pre-Requisites:

Currently teaching, or planning to teach, courses and/or independent student research that includes computational biology, bioinformatics and microbiome-related science.

Facilitators: 

• Jacqueline Washington, Empire State University.
• Karen Avery, Pennsylvania College of Technology.

Description:   

This workshop is sponsored by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). 

Zoonotic diseases have been responsible for infectious disease outbreaks over the last century, from the 1918 Spanish Flu to COVID-19. In this participatory workshop, we will use HHMI BioInteractive resources to explore Nipah virus, a highly pathogenic zoonotic virus that poses a public health threat in several countries. Participants attending this workshop will explore evidence-based teaching strategies that support students' understanding of zoonotic outbreaks, including identifying disease agents, investigating epidemiology through analysis, interpreting real data and exploring ways to reduce the spread of disease. The workshop will incorporate hands-on activities to model student learning, group discussions to foster collaboration and dedicated reflection time for implementation considerations. Educators will leave the workshop with the resources and strategies to engage students in understanding the causative agents of zoonotic diseases, analyzing evidence and enhancing their data literacy skills by studying the Nipah Virus.  

Pre-Requisites:

None, but participants are encouraged to create a free educator account at the HHMI BioInteractive before attending the workshop.