This course follows Biology 109 and continues the exploration of a range of topics from an organismal to a molecular level. The final five weeks of the course will be devoted to the design, implementation and presentation of an original research project, allowing students to bring together all the skills learned in Biology 109 and 110.
| Course Schedule | Biology 110 Resources | Independent Projects | Academic Honesty & Grading |
Text: Introduction to Experimental Biology: Biology 110 This text will be available in the bookstore at the beginning of second semester. Bring it to the first class of the semester.
Attendance is required at all laboratory sessions. You must come to your assigned section unless you have made provisions in advance for attending a different section. Missed labs cannot be made up.
Academic Honesty: Work submitted must be that of the student submitting it. The contributions of others must be explicitly acknowledged and literature must be appropriately cited. For clarification please read the policy concerning academic honesty presented in the Biology 109 syllabus.
| Lab notebook 5% | Short Reports, web tutorials 45% |
| Class participation 5% | Independent Project 45% (performance 10%, oral 5%, paper 30%) |
If you have a disability, and therefore may have need for some type of accommodation(s) in order to participate fully in this class, please feel free to discuss your concerns in private with me AND be sure to contact Erin Salva, Coordinator of Disability Services at PBX 5453 or via e-mail at SALVAE .
Students will write a scientific paper using literature citations and based on a long term project they will design as a class the first week of lab. Data will be collected prior to Spring Break and data analysis and paper writing will be done independently. The paper will be due one week after Spring Break. It will presented in the format learned in Biology 109.
Laboratory Notebook
This packet forms the basis of your laboratory notebook. It should be augmented with notes taken during the laboratory.
The manner in which this is done is extremely important as your laboratory notes will be used when you write papers.
When conducting experiments, changes made in the methods should be clearly documented and important observations
noted. Any problems encountered including measurement error, contaminated reagents or malfunctioning equipment
should be recorded as these may provide insight into unexpected results. Any data collected should be organized
into clearly labeled tables. Your notes should be detailed enough that you can make sense out of them several years
from now. Your notebook may will be collected by the instructor periodically during the semester.
Short Reports
Short reports (3-5 pages, excluding illustrations) are not meant to be elaborate presentations. They must, however, be well written and word processed. Short reports follow the same general outline as a scientific paper (introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion) but are much abbreviated. The major part of the report should be directed towards the results and discussion.
Introduction: Limit to a concise statement of the objectives of the study; one or a few sentences are sufficient.
Materials and Methods: Refer to the lab handout for materials and methods, noting only variations from the stated procedures.
Results: Present the experimental data and observations in an organized manner in tables and graphs (refer to Biology 9 manual for checklist). Include error bars when means are graphed. Label all tables in numerical order (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) and all other illustrations (graphs, diagrams, etc.) in numerical order as Figures (Figure 1, Figure 2 etc.).
Discussion: Demonstrate your understanding of the exercise by explaining the results. Questions posed in some of the handouts are intended to be a guide for discussion and they should be answered within the discussion at the end of the report. Just answering the questions, however, is not sufficient.
Variations on this basic format may be requested for certain exercises. Expectations
that vary from this format will be clearly spelled out in class.
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