Biometrics of Growth and Development. (Professor Joe Kunkel, Biology; Dawn Ciulla, Microbiology) The use of growing plants and animal forms in a graded series of experiments linking students and teachers in elementary through graduate school will allow math, computers and physical principals to be learned in an integrated setting. The mathematics and geometry of form, growth and development of simple systems such as the linear growth of root meristem and pollen tubes as well as the geometry of planar structures (leaves, insect wings) will provide a rich source of study material including a history of experimental approaches and modern cutting edge approaches. Young students will learn to use simple measuring devices such as rulers and calipers to gather data that can be graphed and evaluated with their simple mathematical skills. More advanced students will use computers to capture growing structures and analyze their growth under the action of several normal environmental variables, temperature, salinity and pH. The effects of abnormal conditions such as heavy metal and organic pollutants on the measurable variables will extend the interest of the students outward toward the environment. Interaction between the faculty, graduate students, teachers and middle or elementary students will be interleaved with experiments that are appropriate to each level. The youngest students will follow easily visible plant growth such as seed germination and seedling growth while older students will study more complex shapes with time series analysis of leaf expansion, sexual dimorphism of insect wings or 3-D reconstruction of serial sections. This will require grabbing images to a computer plus analyzing the different shapes and areas with appropriate software. Learning to use software to collect and analyze data will be a major enrichment, which will introduce the computer to students as a data-input and analysis tool. At each level, aspects of experimental design with controls and treatment groups will be introduced. The graduate students will necessarily need training in using computers, statistics and experimental design. They will need to be able to organize how the culture of experimentation is to be transmitted down through the K-12 teacher structure to the lowest educational levels reachable. The highest-level interactions will involve the graduate students and teachers participating in a summer and winter workshop in a morphometrics laboratory, which will challenge them to understand the leading edge of cell and plant growth research or shape evolution, depending on the exact path they take. They will need to learn the use of microscopes, digital cameras and the software that will be used to capture images, record data and analyze it, so that they can effortlessly help their students to participate in their own research projects.