Here we describe the development and implementation of Nature's Medicine Cabinet, an interdisciplinary course meant to teach undergraduates about modern chemical ecology. Our problem-based course is designed to investigate the ecological roles of natural products in plant-insect-human interactions using modern chromatographic methods. In this talk, we discuss novel modular laboratory experiments developed for the analysis of four classes of plant secondary metabolites (terpenoids, phenols, alkaloids and glycosides). The compounds representing these four classes (cucurbitacins, resveratrol, nicotine, and glucoraphanin) share unique chemical and biological properties. The field of chemical ecology provides a fertile testing ground for this interdisciplinary model because it naturally bridges the �distinctive cultures� of chemistry and biology to investigate the role of natural products in nature.  The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of NSF (DUE 0942570) for support of this project.

Nature's Medicine Cabinet: An interdisciplinary course designed to enhance student learning by investigating the ecological roles of natural products in plant-insect interactions

248th National Meeting (2014)

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