Teaching | Seton Bachle

Seton Bachle, PhD

Plant Ecophysiologist

I'm passionate about teaching in the classroom, lab, and in the field; my favorite part about teaching is building relationships with students from all backgrounds. As humans, we are inquisitive and behave as natural scientist - it's my job to point that out AND refine these skills in my students.

Teaching Positions

Taxonomy of Flowering Plants (BIOL 551)

This is my first time as a TA for Plant Taxonomy, but I'm excited to learn more about plant diversity! In this lab, students learn a variety of flowering plant diversity in a phylogenetic context. It also gives students the necessary skills to to recognize plant families by collecting specimen and taxonomically keying them out. This will look a little different in years past, as teaching a lab that is typically very hands-on during a pandemic can be challenging. I am and will continue to work with students on their lab material and also complete physical plant collections (plant presses).

Plant Physiology (BIOL501)

As a graduate teaching assistant at Kansas State University, I co-taught the senior level plant physiology laboratory for several semesters. In this lab, students learn a variety of plant physiological methods that are typically used in current ecophysiological research. This required me to provide extensive feedback and encouragement with individual students throughout the semester. I worked with undergraduate and graduate students to develop independent projects that tackle a plant physiological questions as well as accomplish the following:

Be familiar and capable of reading relevant primary literature.

Understand and develop the process to write scientific reports and manuscripts.

Utilize basic statistics to effectively analyze data

Develop effective communication skills to share results in written and presentation form
Sharpen critical thinking and problem solving skills that arise in research and other careers.

K.E.E.P Case Study Developer

KEEP (Konza Environmental Education Program) is part of Konza's education initiative, and is to "bring children to the tallgrass prairie to increase their understanding of this remarkable ecosystem and to instill a sense of place and pride in their environment." My role is to assist in the production of ecological case studies for K-12, and for the creation and implementation of undergraduate level case studies for plant ecology and physiology. The case studies allow students to not only manipulate Konza data, but my own as well. These hands-on activities increase student's knowledge of the scientific process and learn the significance of ecological research. CHECK OUT THE LATEST DATA NUGGET BY CLICKING THE IMAGE

Programming in R workshops

In my "free time" I have been developing an R programming workshop or short class designed to introduce students to coding in R studio. This will give students the opportunity to manipulate their own data, research and collect freely available data, increase data management skills, and increase science communication in both written reports and presentations. An example of R graphics is provided below: precipitation and temperature (min, mean, max) from April - September at Konza Prairie during of 2016 - 2018).

Principles of Biology (BIOL198)

This is an introductory biology course at Kansas State University, designed for biology majors and non-majors. The purpose of this course is to give students a basic understanding of biological principles. As a teaching assistant and co-instructor for this course, I assisted student learning by setting up laboratory experiments, leading lectures, and assisting students with laboratory procedures. I have taught taught the "Ecology", "Cellular Energetics", and “Plant Biology” modules, which required me to design short lectures ranging from basic cell biology to global climate change.