Bio 121 Syllabus winter 2014 - Ecology Genetics and...

Ecology, Genetics and Evolution
BIOLOGY 121, Section 226, Term 1 - Fall 2013
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 9:00-10:00 am, Biological Sciences Room 2000
Instructor: Dr. James Cooke
Phone: [phone]
Office: BioSci room 2058
email: [email protected]
Office hours: Wednesdays 10-11, or by appointment.
Teaching Assistants : Genevieve Leduc-Robert ( [email protected] ); Yichun Qiu
( [email protected] )
Peer Tutors : Natalie Mahara ( [email protected] ); Lena Raxter ( [email protected] )
Course description : Ecological relationships in populations, mechanisms of inheritance, evidence for
and mechanisms of evolution.
Required for : Life Sciences majors or honours (e.g., Biology, Microbiology and Immunology),
prerequisite for many BIOL and MICB courses, prerequisite for admission or part of program in other
faculties e.g., medicine, dentistry, forestry, etc.
Text
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Biological Science – Freeman, Harrington and Sharp. 2014. 2nd Canadian edition UBC custom
text. Earlier UBC Custom Editions will be adequate for material, but pages may be different.
2nd and 3rd US Edition will be different, so their use is left up to the student.
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It is the responsibility of the student to ensure they are reading the appropriate material
when pre-reading quizzes are assigned. I will be using the Second Canadian edition UBC
custom text when referencing page numbers.
•
Fourth US Edition is very different and therefore, not acceptable.
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Copies of this text are available from the UBC Bookstore, Discount Books or
for short-term loan from the Biology Office, BioSci Room 2521.
Evaluation: Reading Quizzes 5%
In-class participation: iClicker/assignments 5%
Post-class assignments: 5%
Mid-term 1 (Jan. 29th) 15%
Mid-term 2 (Mar. 5th) 20%
Final Exam (date TBA) 50%

Class structure:
Ours will be a type of “flipped” classroom. What does that mean? That means that we will be
using in-class time to do group assignments and problems, as well as broken-down exam questions. In
order to be prepared for these problems during class time, you will be required to some (light!) reading
before coming to class. To make this worth your while, there will also be pre-reading quizzes that will
test your knowledge of this material. At the end of each week, I will post the ‘post-class’ assignment,
which will consist of a single question from an old exam. The goal here is twofold: 1) practicing solving
these questions will help reinforce the material for you, and 2) you will get lots of practice with exam-
style questions before the actual exam.
Why are we using this “flipped classroom” thing anyway?
Because it works. Studies show that students who work in group, solving problems together, retain
more information. If you can work on problems while you have access to an “expert”, you can get
immediate feedback on any problems you’re having.