| 1. Observation of swimming Chlamydomonas cells under bright light microscope |
Students can observe the orange eye spot that functions like “human eye” and helps in photo-taxis. Orange color of eyespot is due to carotenoids. |
| 2. Chlamydomonas photosynthetic pigment analyses by paper chromatography |
Pigments can be extracted by teachers using 100% acetone from pigment-deficient photosynthetic strains and wild type strains. Spinach extract and cyanobacterial Phycocyanin powder (Fisher Scientific) can be used in the paper chromatography experiment to compare pigments in phylogenetically separated species. Chromatography lab can be also connected with fall leaf color change biochemistry and carotenoids. |
| 3. Students can observe the red fluorescence of Phycocyanin solution under cell phone LED light |
Students will learn the oceans can change in color in summer and in winter because of cyanobacterial bloom concentration and will know about cyanobacterial pigments: phycocyanin and phycoerythrin. |
| 4. Photo-taxis lab using Chlamydomonas wild type strain, lts1-211 mutant and rescued lts1-211 (Ueki et al., 2016). |
lts1-211 is an eye spot-less mutant and is devoid of carotenoids that shows reverse photo-tactic behavior compared to the wild type strain in the light. Students can point a flash light to culture plates of the two strains and observe the phototaxis pattern of the two strains. lts1-211 moves towards light while the wild type strain moves away from the light. Rescued lts1-211 will show similar photo-tactic behavior as the wild type strain |
| 5. Observation of Phototaxis under different light intensities and redox conditions. |
lts1-211 mutant moves away from reactive oxygen species like hydrogen peroxide unlike the wild type strain. |
| 6. Bioinformatics lab |
As described under the Discussion section in the manuscript. |
| 7. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration labs |
As described in this manuscript |
| 8. Advanced Photosynthesis Labs: Testing different light intensities and different light color using colored filters (red, blue and green) |
As described under the Discussion section in the manuscript. |
