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Fall 2005 Course Description Dr. Bruce W. Grant
and Dr. Robert W. Morris
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There are three main objectives of this course: Attendance is required and will
benefit your grade. To encourage this, there will be numerous but brief
in-class assignments of 10 points each beginning today. But, the bulk of
you grade from the lecture portion of this course will be based on your
preformance in each of the 3 mid-term exams and the final exam (see class schedule). The first two lecture exams are worth 100
points, the third is worth 150, and the final exam, which is based on exams 1 and 2, is worth 100 points; thus there is the potential for
450 points from exams. Make up tests are strongly discouraged, however, if you are unable to take
a test at the scheduled time AND NOTIFY ME ABOUT IT BEFORE THE SCHEDULED EXAM
DATE AND TIME, you may set up an appointment to take an essay make-up test
during final exam week. The objective of the lab is for
you to learn to "do" biology. This means understanding the use
of the scientific method in the explanation of biological phenomena.Course Description.
Over the past half century biology
has seen an explosion in academic, social and political activity. Technological
advances in biology (especially molecular biology), chemistry, engineering,
and computer science, have led to breakthroughs in our understanding of
how our bodies work, how and why we resemble our ancestors, and how we
can modify and use other living organisms (e.g. bacteria, protists, fungi, plants and animals)
to improve our lives.
Yet despite this proliferation of
knowledge about living organisms, each new discovery reveals dozens of
new questions without answers. Some new questions are purely scientific,
such as “how does the brain work?”, or “what are the causes and cures for
cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and a host of other diseases?”
But other questions are of a very
different nature, and can only be answered by an examination of our deeply
held personal and ethical beliefs, such as “what is life and when is it
not worth technologically prolonging it?” “What rights do non-human life
forms possess?” Or, “who should have access to our personal medical records
that will soon include information about hidden genetic predispositions
to expensive diseases that each of us may have?” Thus, like it or not biologists
and their applied cousins in the biomedical industry are at the fore-front
of major social changes in the new 21st century due to the revolution in biology
that occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. It is your responsibility
as students in this course to absorb enough understanding of the discipline
of biology to become engaged as constructive participants in this debate.
I hope that your experiences in lab
this semester will show you first-hand how biological knowledge is constructed
from observation and interpretation. It is hoped that you will understand
and appreciate the profound and often overwhelming complexity of the living
processes within a single organism. I also hope that you will realize the
limitations of our present day methods of inquiry. We do not understand
from first principles in the vast majority of cases why a living system
(cell, tissue, individual, etc.) responds the way it does to any specific
environmental factor (e.g. a toxin or disease pathogen). Instead, our knowledge
base about biological function, e.g. disease pathology, is almost entirely
based upon empirical record-keeping of what worked and what didn't (also
known as fishing around in the dark).
This profound level of biological
ignorance could not come at a worse time in human history. Due to the unconstrained
industries of a few hundred million people in the developed world, and
the marginal contribution of 5.5 billion others in the developing world,
we now face a planet-wide crisis of environmental degradation. Human caused
perturbation of our air, land, and water ...
Growing concern over these issues
has pushed the science of biology to the forefront of public and political
consciousness. Your developing an understanding of biological processes
and biological inquiry will equip you with the skills to read global environmental
signposts and understand these global threats to the health of ourselves,
our children, of other people, of all other organisms as well. Because
of the critical role that technology, especially biotechnology, will play
in our future if we are to sustain ourselves, your understanding of biology
is critical to your evaluating the courses of action we humans need to
take in order to competently manage our world.
Course Requirements.
There is a required lecture text:
Campbell and Reese. 2005. Biology. Seventh edition. Pearson/ Benjamin Cummings. New York, NY.
This text is well written and well illustrated. I recommend multiple readings of the summaries, "Concept Reviews," at the
end of each assigned chapter. For lab we will use an in-house lab manual
available for sale from us for $15 during the first week of class.
Regardless of the text readings, you
should know that YOUR IN-CLASS NOTES ARE AN IMPORTANT TEXT OF THIS COURSE,
and most of your time outside of class should be spent on them using the
text chapters as reference. Attached is a little activity that may help
you to devise the means to get more out of your in-class notes
(lecture_notes.pdf or lecture_notes.doc).
Course Assessment.
As mentioned above, there will also
be numerous 10-20 point in-class quizzes and homework assignments as needed to improve
my assessment of your effort and performance in this course. Most of these
assignments will be unannounced, and therefore cannot be made up if you
missed that class; thus, don’t miss class. These assignments will total
250 points.
Your final grade will be based on
your total number of accumulated points, and I will use a +/- grading system.
Widener University's policy on cheating and other forms of academic fraud as
described in the Student Handbook will be strictly enforced.
I will be enforcing the University-wide
class attendance policy as described in the Student Handbook. Students who
are absent without a valid excuse (as defined in the Handbook) 4-6 times
will receive a 2/3 letter grade reduction, 7-9 times yields a full letter grade,
and more than 9 unexcused absences will result in an F. According to the
Handbook, if you know you will be absent from class (e.g. due to a prior
committment or lengthy illness) you should notify the Office of the
Assistant Provost.
The breakdown of points for this course
will be
Comments on the Lab Portion of the Course.
The schedule of events in lab is posted
here.
In the laboratory for this course, you will learn
how biological knowledge is constructed using the scientific method. It is through the process of
scientific inquiry using the scientific method that natural phenomena are observed, interpreted, and
reported. Science is a "way of knowing" about the world around us with which one gains an
understanding of our environment and the effects of human activities upon it. Laboratory activities
will span the range from experiences designed to reinforce principles in the lecture portion of the
course to more open-ended single and multiweek inquiries during which you will design and conduct
experiments and present your results to your peers during in class symposia.
Your syllabus of lab activities will
be handed out in lab. Each of the lab exercises has a set of clearly defined
expectations and assignments for you to fulfill. Your performance
in lab will be assessed by the oral and written reports, assignemnts, and other evidence over
the course of the semester. This will be explained further in lab by your lab instructor. The
lab grade accounts for 40% of the total course grade (the exact components
of lab assessment will be explained in lab).
Attendance is required in lab. More
than 2 unexcused absences results in failure. If you know that you must
miss a particular lab, you must make prior arrangements to attend this
lab in another section (there are numerous other choices).
Please Read This Comment.This page was last modified 9 September 2005, and has been
accessed times since 1 July 2001.
You are welcome to download some or all of the material we have posted at this site for your use in your biology
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Please send comments to: grant@pop1.science.widener.edu.
Copyright - Bruce W. Grant and Robert W. Morris, 2005.
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