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10 questions

21 Oct

ImageI’m in the midst of writing mid-term exams for my general biology students and I’m desperate for more questions. For logistical purposes, a 50 question exam is ideal. I have almost 40 of them in the can and I feel like I’ve covered most of the material pretty well. 

 – Oh, crap, I just made the last batch of Cookies for the Microbiology Review a bit ‘well-done’ –  

Any suggestions out there?

Topics include:

1. Basic cell functions and organelles

2. Enzymes and Energy

3. Plasma Membrane and the Principle of Diffusion

4. Photosynthesis and Cell Respiration

5. Cell Division and Cancer

Any suggestions (including those from my own students) are appreciated. Here’s your chance to write a question that you already know the answer to.

 
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Posted by on October 21, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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Organizing next semester

18 Sep

Next semester will bring a new course. one I’m calling Ecology, but presently, only one half Imageof the class appears to be ecology, while the second will cover molecular biology and topics of Biotech and Recombinant DNA Tech.

We will be using E.O. Wilson’s 1971 text, Primer of Population Biology as a primary source of material in the first unit, so far I’m not sure what to use for the second unit. 

 
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Posted by on September 18, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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Your Inner Fish – Chapter 1

28 Jan

tiktaalik_reconstructionThis semester, like the preceding three or four semesters, my general biology class is reading ‘Your Inner Fish’ by Neil Shubin. Every week, we cover one chapter and my students write an essay with their thoughts before we discuss that chapter in class.

Last week was our first week with this book, so I’ve just completed reading several essays on chapter 1 from my students. Overall, I’d say that the book seems to be getting a good response and at least interests most people. I’ve had a wide variety of responses with respect to accepting the author’s interpretations of Tiktaalik, his find of a ~375 million year old fossil species that shows evidence of being a transition species for the first quadrupeds to come onto land.

This is always a fun group of essays for me to read because it challenges students to consider their perception of science as a way of viewing the world. Or, perhaps I should say, ‘science, as a way of understanding the world around us.’ A scientific view of the world is actually a fairly unnatural one. It is easy to see how it is even evolutionarily disadvantageous to have a scientific view of the world. If you have been a victim of a crime (you imagesget mugged walking down a city street) don’t you always expect that crime to happen again? It doesn’t matter that this happened only once out of thousands of times you walked the same route home, you now feel convinced that this is dangerous and are more alert and cautious. You may even find a new way home. And who would blame you? We’re programmed to look out for our own safety. This often means over-exaggerating  our fears and assuming the worst. It also means that we will now overestimate the real danger.

The other thing this discussion brings up is: what does science do for us?

The answer is supposed to be, ‘it enables us to learn from the past and have a better ability to predict the future.’  We can make predictions about things if we closely observe the world and learn its laws. The corollary to this is, if you can’t learn from the evidence you see about you, how can you ever know what to expect from the world?

All of these are interesting questions. All of them challenge how we look at the world, what we take for granted and what we can expect to get from our experiences. I’m really looking forward to reading more of my students’ reflections on this text and hope that you (anyone reading this) feel free to engage in a dialog about either this book, or the questions it brings up.

 
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Posted by on January 28, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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Brainstorming a new class

27 Dec

I’m not certain whether I can push this through or not where I teach, but I’m interested in designing and teaching a course on the nature of science and addressing some of the philosophical questions around science. I brought this up with my wife on the way to the airport yesterday to discuss it and we identified two central problems: What is the appropriate scope of a class like this? i.e. Should it address just a few central questions or cover more of the reach of science? Secondly, how much can I really expect students to read in a semester? Many of my students are part time and have full-time jobs and children they are managing around their academic schedules.

Let me be honest, I really want to do this course because I want to read or re-read a lot of these books and do a much better job when I have to discuss it in front of a class.

Here’s the rough draft outline of what I would love to teach in a perfect world. I’d love to get comments and suggestions about how to shape this course. More readings, key chapters of books to excerpt from the books I identified or others, etc. Also, if you’ve taught or taken a course like this, what was the reading load like?

imageLV1

The Nature of Biology: A Reading Course

A Proposal for a one credit course in biology focusing on reading, discussion and writing assignments.  Student grades come entirely from written and oral discussion – no tests

Format: Meet once or twice a week for one and a half  hours to discuss readings, organize schedules and discuss writing assignments

Assignments: Ongoing discussion groups online – every student must write at least one post with a significant contribution AND at least one reply to another student’s post for each book read.

Objective: To consider the physical and chemical laws of the universe and assess how these come together to ‘create’ biological life. Also, to discuss what we know of the origins of the universe, the earth and life itself. How does science teach us to think about these things? How do we know what is real and what is not?

Structure

Unit I: The Nature of Science

  1. What makes us think that we can believe what our senses tell us? What is reason and how can we make rational decisions in this world?
    1. Something on the nature and philosophy of science
    2. How can we tell the real from the make believe?
      1. Show the scene for 2001 when Dave Bowman is running around the inside of the Discovery.

i.     “What are we seeing?”

ii.     “How is it possible that he can run continuously and keep going around in circles?”

iii.     Why do we need an explanation at all. Can’t we just accept what we see?

  1. Dawkins, The Magic of Reality
  2. Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts

Unit II: Physical Origins

  1. What do we know about the universe?
  2. How did it begin and how will it end?
  3. We are all star-stuff: Basic Physical and Chemical Laws
    1. a.     ____________, Carl Sagan
    2. Origin of Earth
      1. a.     The Earth, the Moon and the Solar system – some video…. What if we had no moon?

Unit III: Biology

  1. What is Biology?
    1. What makes Biology Special, Ernst Mayr
    2. Life is United
      1. Something on Evolution??? Mayr again? –or- Why Evolution is True, Coyne
      2. Craig Venter on creating synthetic life in the lab
 
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Posted by on December 27, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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