Developing a class to show the usefulness of phylogeny in taxonomy

I really like thought that a lively emeritus professor might be a good outside source. We could make a list of them and interview them for types of questions they think could be adapted into simple workshops that illustrate an important concept about biotech and are tied to specific bench skills.

Sure! I think that is possible.

There might be scientific complications in making these phylogenies though given the commercial interest in this product. Or maybe consumers don't know enough to demand any better (until they've purchased it and it's too late).

About the dog idea; you mean there is potential to be price competitive and more accurate. Hand the test to a liquid handling robot protocol once 96 well plate full of samples.

I like this idea of community projects to solve lesser-known biological mysteries. I think most experienced scientists will have some experiments or analysis they wish would be done but are unlikely to be for some reason. I think lively emeritus professors might be a good outside source.

There is the more serious appeal for funding where you try to invent something or answer some questions of interest for a large preexisting community. But there is also the less serious side where you attempt to entertain/educate on youtube. Who wants to be a youtube science star? I am not joking about this, not that I'm volunteering. ;) But counter-culture, citizen scientists pursuing mysteries could be pretty picturesque, provided the mysteries are not too obscure. With an entertainment angle, it seems you might get a much larger audience and more money eventually if you have the stomach for it.

As for the dog idea, there are a bunch of quite pricey ($100 -$150) kits that you can get on Amazon. Judging from the reviews, people think the tests are inaccurate, and looking at some of the posted dog photos, I have to agree. And, relatively often, your dog is just classified as a 'super-mutt', which means they had nothing informative to say. We just adopted a rescue puppy, but I decided against the tests since they seemed expensive and silly.

could we assay pet stool in a meaningful way to provide simple bio marker trends? TOI include cAMP, microbiota, glucose, water %.

Actually i think both of those are within what I described, the first is people wanting to acquire a new skill for whatever reason, maybe to find a new job that requires skills they don't have. the folks in the second example are people that would be in the network of SMEs that we would contact. I'm not sure those taking a course would want to from a teacher that is teaching the course a s away to learn how to teach something.

Yes that is certainly how I conceptualize the programming that we offer. But I also have observed two other motivations for programming:

• exposing topics to the public they may have otherwise not come into contact with (especially in the context of the lab bench and research) and connecting it to their experiences

• giving folks in specialized disciplines the opportunity to teach in a different setting to develop their skills, learn from the community and promote their causes

I am familiar with the process of creating and delivering course material but less with the process of identifying folks who would be in need or interested in certain material.

ok. I am assuming that within BWoB competencies/services will be the ability to produce different types of courses, and workshops in response to demand . depending on the topic and course level BWoB's staff will teach courses or they tap into their network of subject matter expert volunteers to teach a class or workshop. is that roughly correct?

I'm not asking for anything directly. I'm trying to gauge interest in creating a workshop that caters to a specific community in anticipation of a crowdfunding campaign. We don't necessarily need our own lab space to create a workshop.

I have experience in making workshops/executing them. And it's easy for me to learn the details of a specific topic. I actually have an undergraduate course project in mind to adapt into a workshop that could speak to issues in taxonomy that could be clarified by phylogeny. @Craig Trester and I did a (IMO, under developed) class like it some time ago. That could also be a good starting point to work from.

The point is to teach people something useful that would get them interested in using a lab space and yes I do imagine that as feeding interest into some sort of crowd-funding campaign.

i watched the video but i'm not sure what you are asking. Are you asking how to make classes or workshops interesting to a broad audience? Are you asking that about a specific topic? is the point here that you would showcase this in a crowd funding campaign?