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Last revision: 3/27/97

Personnel:

phone e-mail address office hours

Dan Udovic 346-5092 udovic@oregon 335 Pacific MF 11

Jill Fuglister 346-5003 fuges@darkwing 6 Pacific M 8:30; U 8

Justin Hicks 346-4697 justin@darkwing 394 Onyx H 10

Christy Quebodeaux 346-4538 cheidel@gladstone 360 Onyx U 10

Kristina Vartanian krisv@gladstone 25 Klamath W 2

Paul Schroder 341-4507 ambiente@gladstone 25 Klamath U 3

The very best way to get in touch with us is via e-mail. You can expect a prompt (though not immediate) response to questions or comments sent via e-mail. Though some of you may feel it is a bit ìimpersonalî, e-mail increases your access to us dramatically, and you should take advantage of it.

Web Site -- http://biology.uoregon.edu/Biology_WWW/online_classes/bi103s97

Course Overview:

In this course, we will explore the sciences of ecology and evolution and their implications for humanity. We will study the diverse ways in which scientists approach the study of our natural and explore how to use scientific information in decision-making.

Biology 103 has two parts: (1) the large-class ìlectureî section, and (2) smaller laboratory sections which will involve guided and self-designed investigations, demonstrations and group projects.

Class Goals

Here are the major learning objectives we want you to achieve by the end of the course:

ï Gain some basic knowledge about the fundamental concepts of ecology and evolution that will help you better understand Earthís biological history, how our planet functions and how human actions are influencing the planet

ï Gain an understanding of how the sciences of ecology and evolution work and what their limits are. In particular, we hope you will learn that science is not a body of facts, but a way of knowing, a way to learn about the world we live in.

ï Recognize the importance of biological and scientific literacy in our daily lives

ï Improve skills at obtaining, understanding and judging the quality of information

ï Improve ability to organize and communicate your ideas

Class Activities and Resources

Class meetings and participation. Class meetings serve several important functions that cannot be duplicated by doing the reading on your own, by talking to someone who attended class, or by reading footnotes. It is very important to your learning (and to your grade) that you attend class regularly. I will assume that everyone is doing the reading and the homework; I do not plan to lecture from the readings. Instead, we will focus on putting your readings into context, we will explore some ideas that are difficult to understand by reading alone, we will introduce and reflect on laboratory activities, and we will use class time for special kinds of presentations and activities (video segments, group activities, etc.).

The first few minutes of class often will be devoted to review of previous classes and overview of the upcoming meeting. This is an important part of the class meeting (material directly relevant to exams is often reviewed); try not to be late to class, but if you are, please come in and sit down quietly so as not to disturb others.

I believe that we learn best when we actively construct our knowledge rather than when we passively absorb knowledge. It is a challenge for all of us to accomplish this within the context of a large classroom, where the environment is conducive to passive, not active learning. In this setting, it is easy for teachers to rely on lecturing as a seemingly efficient mode of knowledge ìtransmissionî and on objective exams as the easiest way to assess student learning. Similarly, it is easy for students to remain anonymous, to hide in the crowd, and to simply try to ìget byî. This is particularly true in a ìgeneral educationî course.

To meet the challenge of active learning we must all agree to make the extra effort to overcome the inertia of the large classroom. For the instructors, this means making the commitment to providing opportunities for active learning, and for spending time reading and commenting on student work. For students, this means taking more responsibility for your own learning, becoming a proactive rather than reactive learner, coming to class prepared to participate, and resisting the temptation to ìtune outî during classroom activities.

We will provide a number of opportunities for you to get actively involved in learning. Examples include group projects, group activities in the classroom, and the use of educational technology.

Laboratories. We consider the labs to be the central focus of the course, not just an add-on to lecture. We have tried to design active learning experiences that will broaden your understanding of what the science of biology is all about. To the greatest extent possible, you will be working in groups posing your own questions, designing experiments or observations to help find answers, and presenting your findings in written and/or oral form.

The activities that we will do in the lab will fall into one or more of the following themes: (1) Biodiversity, (2) Population Growth and Interactions, and (3) Environmental Decision-Making. In addition you will work with several members of your lab section on a term project of your own choosing, which will be presented in a poster session during the last week of class.

Reading. The primary readings for the course will be from Postlethwait and Hopsonís The Nature of Life and from E. O. Wilsonís The Diversity of Life. Both are available at the UO Bookstore. In addition, there will be a small packet of readings from science magazines and journals that will be assigned in conjunction with particular lab activities.

Your reading will be one of the most important ways for you to learn the important concepts in the course and to see how the course material relates to environmental and other pertinent issues. The study guide at the back of Wilsonís book is a superb resource to help you organize the material. Answering the questions for each chapter is a great way to insure that you understand the material. In addition to assigned readings, you will be gathering and reading other materials for your project.

Materials on Reserve. Copies of the texts will be on reserve in the Science Library. There are also some other interesting books and articles on reserve relating to the project and to the course in general.

The Class Web Page. The World Wide Web offers some great resources for learning introductory biology. We will be placing a variety of important and useful materials on our class home page, including information and announcements about the course (including the schedule, assignments and grades), about the teaching staff, about students, about campus resources, and about ecology and evolution. You will find material for each lecture (brief outlines of lecture notes, pictures and graphs, and links to many other relevant web sites). As the term proceeds, we will develop a collection of ìcase studiesî referred to in lecture and lab. Several other study aids will be available on the web. Finally, for those of you interested in creating web pages for presenting your projects, there will be an easy-to-follow web form to automate the process.

Other Students. You are valuable resources for each other. We encourage you to form study groups, to peer review each otherís writing, to listen attentively to what your classmates say in class discussions, to share ideas via e-mail, and to learn from the diversity of group projects presented at the end of the term.

Footnotes. It is possible that Student Services will offer footnotes for this class. They may be a valuable supplement to your class notes, but they cannot replace attendance and participation in class. You may find footnotes redundant, given the information available on the class web page.

Evaluation and Grading

Except in unusual circumstances, everyone will be graded according to the following plan. If you feel that you could benefit by altering the course requirements or weighting the components differently, you should talk to me about this by April 10. If you want to alter these requirements, you will need to write a proposal, similar to the one that follows, and include a justification for the way in which you want to be evaluated. If we both agree on an alteration, you will use your proposal to write a contract explaining exactly how your course grade will be determined. Changes in the nature of grading after this point in the course will not be considered.

Final grades will be a composite of lecture and laboratory scores. You must pass both the lecture and laboratory in order to receive a passing grade in this course.

Your scores will be kept recorded and will be available through our class web site (using the last four or five digits of your student ID). The will also be displayed in the glass case next to the elevator on the 3rd floor of Pacific Hall (around the corner from my office, 335 Pacific). You should check these periodically to make sure that we have not made a mistake in entering your scores. If you think that you deserve a different mark on a writing assignment or on an exam question, give the appropriate instructor a brief written explanation of the situation. Addition errors and the like will be corrected at any time, but if you think one of your answers deserved more points than it was awarded, you must let us know in writing within one week of the return of your assignment or exam. Keep all of your work (exams, homework, essays, etc.)! Because it is important that you not lose any assignments, we suggest you keep an extra copy (photocopy, or computer file) of any writing that you do. This will also make it easier for you to redo any written assignments, if you so desire.

Lecture

Exams (175 points) and Quizzes (30 points). There will be two midterm exam, a comprehensive final exam, and two pop quizzes. Each midterm exam will be worth 50 points; the final is worth 75 points. Each quiz will be worth 15 points. Exams and quizzes will cover material from lecture and lab, as well as the assigned reading. Exams will be a mixture of multiple choice, short answer and essay.

Make-Up Policy. In order to make up an exam, you must be involved in a recognized University activity or have a verifiable medical or family excuse. You should notify us in advance if at all possible.

Discussion Questions (20 points). Your will work with members of your lab group to periodically answer discussion questions. These questions are designed to stimulate critical thought and to prepare you for exams. Responses should be short (< 100 words).

The goal behind the discussion questions is to get you to discuss them (either in person or via e-mail) and come up with a group response. Group members will take turns writing the answers to the questions after conferring with the entire group. You will have the opportunity to answer 5 questions. The four best grades will be counted. Your answers will be graded as follows:

Laboratory Write-Ups (3 write-ups for 20 points each). There will be a lab write-up do for each of the three main laboratory modules. These will be submitted as a group, with a different person taking prime responsibility for each write-up.

Term project (100 points). Working in groups, you will do a class project culminating in a poster session the last week of classes. The projects must fit within one of the following three categories:

_ Issues Projects. These will focus on a controversial scientific issue or a social/political issue pertaining to ecology and/or evolution.

_ Ecological Investigations. These projects will focus on doing experiments or making observations to help answer ecological or evolutionary questions.

_ Photo-essays of Ecosystems. These projects will focus on an ecosystem of your choice and attempt to capture on film the ecological and evolutionary concepts presented in class and in your readings.

Details on the project will be described in another handout.

Participation (40 points). Each week there are 4 points available for coming to lab prepared and organized to work. Read labs before arriving! You will receive either 4 points or 0 points for each lab. If you are not in lab, you receive 0 points.

Format for ALL Written Assignments

All written assignments submitted for a grade must be word processed or typed. Naturally we expect work of high professional quality that has been carefully edited for spelling and grammatical errors prior to submission. Use at least one inch margins on all sides, and do not use any kind of folder or binder or title page. Make sure your name, lab time, Course Number and date are in the upper left hand corner. Staple your work BEFORE turning it in. For all group assignments, list the group members and the project title.

Determining your course grade.

The following grading scheme will help you chart your progress during the quarter. Use the grade sheet at the end of the syllabus to keep track of your own scores. You may check your scores from the class web page at any time during the term.

This syllabus is, in effect, a contract between students and instructors about how each of us will carry out our duties this quarter. You should read this carefully at several times during the quarter. If you are uncomfortable with, or if you don't understand parts of this syllabus, you should talk to me or one of the teaching assistants about it as soon as possible.

There are some university guidelines for behavior that I expect all of us to abide by as well. One of these has to do with plagiarism, or taking credit for the work of others. This is a serious offense and will be treated according to the guidelines in the Spring-term schedule of classes (pp 113-114). Don't do it! This doesn't mean you shouldn't talk with other students about what you are thinking or writing; it does mean that when you write something, it should be in your own words, not copied from someone else. You write is to exercise you brain, not your wrists.

I also ask that we all do our best to be intellectually honest, while also being tolerant of personal differences. Everyone in the class should feel safe to express an idea, even if that idea is not a popular one. I welcome and encourage intellectual controversy--it is how we learn best, I believe. I demand, however, that we respect one another's right to believe differently, even as we challenge the ideas supporting those beliefs. I promise to value each of you as individuals independently of how well you do on exams or homework in this class.

We all have crises now and then. If you are having problems that are interfering with your ability to do the work in this class, please tell us about it as soon as you can. We are willing to give incompletes or to make some kinds of special arrangements when the need is real and when you have done your best to deal with the situation and have let me know about it in a timely manner.

Bi 103 Personal Grade Sheet

Packet Articles

1. Bright, Christopher. 1995. Bio-Invasions: the spread of non-native species. World Watch 8 (4): 10-19.

2. Nixon, Will. 1994. Crowded out. In These Times, September 5, pp 23-25.

3. Bender, William and Margaret Smith. 1997 Feeding the future. Population Today 25 (3; March): 4-5.

4. Platt, Anne. 1995. The resurgence of infectious diseases. World Watch. 8 (4): 26-32.

5. Hardin, Garrett, 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162: 1243-1248.

6. Eisner, T. et. al. 1995. Building a scientifically sound policy for protecting endangered species. Science 268: 1231-1232.

7. Nicol, S. and W. de la Mare 1993. Ecosystem management and the Antarctic krill. American Scientist 81: 36-48.

8. Christensen, N.L., et al. 1996. The Report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Scientific Basis for Ecosystem Management. Ecological Applications 6(3):665-691. On the WWW, not included in packet. (http://www.sdsc.edu/ESA/ecmpage.htm)

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