RESUMO
Traditionally, earning a degree in animal science requires many face-to-face, hands-on courses; however, the COVID-19 pandemic created a situation in which traditional delivery of these courses may not be feasible as they provide a health risk to our students, teaching assistants, and instructors alike. This examination of two pedagogically different courses and how each was transitioned to an online format highlights the types of teaching decisions that are required to effectively teach animal science in an online format. The Farm Animal Production Systems lab was an animal handling and production practices lab, and although the transition to online delivery did not allow for students to participate in traditional hands-on development of skills, various resources were utilized that still achieved the development of animal handling concepts that will prepare students for later courses and work with live animals. In contrast, the Animal Science Laboratory Teaching Methods course remained consistent in format through the transition to online because students were still able to participate in discussion-based activities via Zoom meetings each week due to the small class size, which helped to maintain student engagement. However, the final teaching experience was modified to an alternative assignment. The alternate assignment included self-reflection and course evaluation that will help to improve both the Farm Animal Production Systems laboratory and the Animal Science Teaching Methods course in the future. Although COVID-19 has been a challenge that disrupted traditional courses, it has provided opportunities for a traditionally hands-on discipline, such as animal science, to more effectively engage students via an online platform.
RESUMO
In a randomized design study, lambs were individually fed with ad libitum access to 70.9% concentrate diets for 56 d in individual pens. The positive control diet (CNTL) contained cottonseed meal (CSM), sorghum grain, and cottonseed hulls, but no dried distillers' grains with solubles (DDGS). Four treatment diets were similar to CNTL but did not contain CSM. Corn DDGS replaced 0% (0DDGS), 33% (33DDGS), 66% (66DDGS), or 100% (100DDGS) of the sorghum grain in the treatment diets. At 48-h postmortem, the longissimus muscle (LM) was removed from the carcass, cut into chops, frozen, thawed, cooked, and evaluated by a trained sensory panel. Lambs fed CNTL were compared with 0DDGS using contrasts and linear and quadratic effects were evaluated among the four DDGS diets. Lambs fed CNTL had greater (P ≤ 0.03) hot carcass weight (HCW) and LM area than lambs fed 0DDGS. As DDGS incrementally replaced sorghum grain, marbling linearly decreased (P = 0.03), LM area tended to linearly increase (P = 0.06), and skeletal maturity tended to linearly decrease (P = 0.06). As DDGS incrementally replaced sorghum grain, flavor attributes quadratically increased to 33DDGS then decreased (brown, roasted, umami; P ≤ 0.03), quadratically decreased to 33DDGS then increased (metallic; P = 0.004), or linearly decreased (lamb flavor identity; P = 0.03). Volatile aroma compounds 2-(hexyloxy)-ethanol decreased and 2,3-octanedione and methyl pyrazine increased quadratically with an increase in DDGS (P < 0.05). Additionally, 2-heptenal, heptanal, and 2-pentyl furan increased linearly, while 2-butanone decreased linearly as DDGS increased in the diet (P < 0.05). Results indicate that carcass and sensory characteristics and volatile aroma compounds are not negatively affected, in fact brown, roasted, and umami flavors are enhanced, when 33% DDGS replaces CSM and sorghum grain in Dorper lamb feedlot diets.
