BU TREES Course (BIO 1105)

BU-TREES (BIO 1105) is an introductory Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience that uses Trees for Research and Educational ExperienceS.

In BU-TREES, students learn essential scientific skills including laboratory techniques, data analysis, collaborative problem solving, teamwork, and scientific communication. Through hands-on investigations involving field measurements, microscopy, molecular analysis, digital imaging, and bioinformatics, students discover how observations lead to questions, questions lead to investigation, and investigation leads to new understanding.

Using trees as living research specimens, students explore biological processes shared across all forms of life while developing the skills and habits of mind used by scientists. The course invites students to see themselves not as observers separate from nature, but as participants in an interconnected living world. By combining scientific inquiry with thoughtful reflection, students are encouraged to recognize both the unity and diversity of life, appreciate the wonder of creation, and consider how greater understanding can lead to deeper care for the world around them.

Prior to class, students are assigned readings to integrate their lab activities into the bigger picture of our living world and to prepare for the investigation for the week. During lab, working in research teams, students collect and analyze field and molecular data from one of the approximately 3,000 trees on Baylor's campus. After lab they reflect on and analyze their results. Their work contributes to the university's growing tree data archive and supports ongoing efforts to understand, document, and care for this valuable campus resource.

View an example of the BU-TREES data (stomatal images and DNA barcoding sequences) on the Sustainability Tree Map, for example, see Tree # 526.