1. An Introduction to the Inquiry Page and the Biology Workbench An Introduction to the Inquiry Page and the Biology Workbench Anu Murphy Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign

2. The Inquiry Page and the Biology Workbench were created at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. They can be used in the high school classroom to aid in performing and sharing online research projects Inquiry Page: http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu Biology Workbench: http://peptide.ncsa.uiuc.edu/

3. The Inquiry Page The Inquiry Page is a virtual web-based community for exchanging ideas, questions, concerns, regarding various individual and collaborative projects. It is used in schools, universities, libraries, etc. URL: http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu

4. Examples of Inquiry Pages: –http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=s elect&xmlfile=u10499.xml –http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=s elect&xmlfile=u10012.xml –http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=s elect&xmlfile=u10211.xml Inquiry Units can be created open (for public viewing) or for private use (I.e., closed to the public and accessible with permission only). Oakland High School Inquiry Unit is accessible with permission only. –http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/group_update.cgi

5. Setting up your own Inquiry Units Register on the Inquiry Page website –(use your e-mail address as login and choose a password) Create your Inquiry Page (examples) –(demonstrate walk-through) Questions/comments?

6. Biology Workbench Contains Bioinformatics tools to study protein and nucleic acid sequences Sequence analysis is necessary for: –identification of protein function (I.e., what metabolic process protein takes part in) –origin of protein (I.e., what organism protein was obtained from) –comparison of different species of organisms containing similar proteins (ex.: can construct phylogenetic trees from aligned protein sequences) –analyze how diseases affect organisms Tutorials available Register to use the Biology Workbench (need login, password)

7. Relevance to Classroom Use the Inquiry Page to: –store project PowerPoint presentations –Share comments/questions with classmates and teacher –store links to relevant class-related web sites –store figures, upload documents

8. Use the Biology Workbench for: –comparing protein sequences from different organisms (ex. Different trees/plants of interest) –Constructing phylogenetic trees to study evolutionary patterns –Study the effect of certain diseases on plant protein sequences –identify functionally significant segments of protein sequences

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