Professor Diane O'Dowd is known for the creative classroom techniques she uses in her introductory biology courses at the University of California, Irvine. One day she will show up with tennis balls designed to stand in for hydrogen ions or with her daughter's old Halloween wig, which stands in for a membrane vesicle. This website provides visitors with fabulous examples of her work, known as "Garage Demos." The name comes from the fact that the materials for the demonstrations come from Professor O'Dowd's garage. Currently, the site contains ten different demonstrations, including "Tennis Ball Buffer," "Garden Hose Plasmid," and "Styrofoam Blood Cells." The videos are all linked on YouTube, so visitors can even create their own playlist. The site is rounded out by demonstrations by Professor Richard Losik at Harvard and several other demonstrations dealing with sickle cell anemia and membrane fluidity.
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