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Course Learning Outcomes

Course Learning Outcomes

BI22x learning outcomes

Baccalaureate CORE Learning Outcomes

This course fills the Perspectives category of the Physical Sciences.

Students will:

  • Recognize and apply concepts and theories of basic physical or biological sciences.
  • Apply scientific methodology and demonstrate the ability to draw conclusions based on observation, analysis, and synthesis.
  • Demonstrate connections with other subject areas

Share Learning Outcomes All BI22x Course:

  1. Generate questions and construct testable hypotheses about biological mechanisms based on observations of the natural world.
  2. Design an experiment using appropriate methodology (experimental techniques, controls, data collection and analysis), reach conclusions and identify future lines of inquiry.
  3. Integrate subdisciplinary concepts from within and outside biology to address complex problems.
  4. Identify ways that interdisciplinary concepts are used to explain biological phenomena.
  5. Defend a viewpoint on a socio-scientific issue based on biological research
  6. Evaluate multiple representations (e.g., diagrams, physical models, mathematical relationships) by comparing the applications, strengths, and limitations of different models and their relationship to real biological systems.
  7. Create models (e.g., cartoon, schematic, flow chart, interpretive dance, etc.) to demonstrate biological concepts or systems.
  8. Apply quantitative skills to biological problems.
  9. Explain and use mathematical relationships relevant to biology.
  10. Work productively in teams with diverse perspectives.
  11. Share ideas with peers clearly and accurately using scientific conventions.
  12. Effectively communicate experimental outcomes using professional scientific formats (e.g. report, poster, presentation).
  13. Read and interpret primary scientific literature.

BI221 Learning Outcomes:

Students will be able to:

  1. Describe the building blocks and synthesis of the major classes of biomolecules and the contribution of their three-dimensional structure to their functions.
  2. Model cell components, emphasizing them as a system of interacting parts
  3. Predict how a molecule’s movement is affected by its thermal energy, size, electrochemical gradient, and biochemical properties.
  4. Describe and relate anabolic (photosynthesis) and catabolic (respiration and fermentation) pathways emphasizing the transformation of energy and matter.
  5. Articulate how cells store, use, and transmit genomic information.
  6. Illustrate how conservation of the genetic code and the varying effects of mutations facilitate evolution.
  7. Model the processes by which evolution allows for the emergence of cell complexity and diversity.
  8. Explain how mutation and genetic recombination contribute to phenotypic variation in a population and predict how abiotic and biotic selective pressures can alter those populations over space and time.

BI222 Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

  1. Explain mechanisms by which cells receive and respond to internal and external signals that vary through space and time.
  2. Explain how structure relates to physiology and transfer these concepts to a new situation.
  3. Describe how biological systems detect and respond to different internal/external environmental conditions through feedback.
  4. Describe and relate anabolic (photosynthesis) and catabolic (respiration and fermentation) pathways and how these processes are similar and different in different organismal groups.
  5. Compare and contrast solutions to shared homeostatic challenges across various forms of life.

BI223 Learning Outcomes

After completion of this course, students will be able to:

Describe the interconnectedness of organisms and their environment at different temporal and spatial scales.

  1. Provide morphological, molecular and developmental evidence of the common ancestry of life.
  2. Describe how biotic and abiotic components of the environment shape organismal traits through the process of natural selection
  3. Use phylogenies to explore the evolutionary relationships among taxonomic groups.
  4. Outline how evolutionary processes impact biodiversity.
  5. Explain how biotic and abiotic interactions influence and are influenced by morphological, physiological and behavioral traits.
  6. Explain how evolutionary, developmental, and environmental processes influence the evolution of structures, functions, and behaviors that impact fitness.
  7. Describe how interactions between structure and function influence ecosystems at multiple scales.
  8. Develop a model to explain the flow of energy, and compare and contrast the cycling of matter in various ecosystems in the biosphere at human and geologic time scales.
  9. Use multiple representations to model the relationships between species/population abundance and distribution in relation to biotic and abiotic factors.