Hello, My name is Jamie Collins and will be your instructor for this biology course
First a little background about myself. I graduated from the College of Wooster in 1998 with a Bachelor's Degree in chemsitry with a minor in biology.
After graduation I worked for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, OH for three years as an analytical chemist in the Skin Beauty Care Division.
After three years at P&G I decided to go back to to school. I enrolled in the Sports Studies program at Miami University in Oxford, OH where I studied sport behavior and performance including sport psychology and sport nutrition.
Following grad school I was a professional triathlete and lifeguard for two years
Currently I am working for Dow Chemical in Marietta testing the physical properties of polyurethane systems.
So, that is how got here. Now I need to know your names, so if we could just go around the room and give me your names, that would be great.
logistics
I am still finalizing the syllabus and will have that for you next week. I just received my copy of Top Shelf yestersday so I will need a little time to look that over to finish the syllabus. From glancing through Top Shelf in the time that I have had I can say that the book is covers most of the major concepts that we will be covering in class, but is very light on the details. As such there will be a lot of material and activites that are not from Top Shelf. For a more detailed text, Biology by Campbell is a very good one. I have the 3rd edition from my college biology class. I believe the 8th edition is being released in november. You can pick up the 5th and 6th editions at a big discount on Ebay. Another option that is less expensive and somewhere inbetween Top Shelf and Campbell in terms of detail is the SATII prep guide. There are several different ones out there. I got the Barron's guide on Ebay for 2.00. I would highly recommend picking this up if you are planning on taking the SATII, and even if you are not, it will fill a lot of the gaps that Top Shelf leaves out. If you are planning on taking science classes in college, Campbell will be a resource you can used for years, if you are just taking this for your science requirement then SATII would be enough.
I sent an email out saying that I would have copies of Top Shelf available so if anyone was planning on purchasing that book today, raise your hand and I can give you a copy. The book is 12.00 and there is also the monthly fee of 40.00 that I would like to get after class today or at next weeks class.
Today
Originally I had planned on trying not to do much lecturing and spending most of class time on labs and experiential exercises, but Top Shelf skips over most of the introductory information that would be included in a high school biology class so we are going to spend some time today talking about that.
First we need to talk about what biology is. Can anyone answer that question for me, What is Biology? Take student answers
In is broadest sense, biology is the study of life. Biologists study all aspects of living organisms. Within biology there are several (5) major themes or frameworks that are essential to understand.
One is the cellular basis of life. The cell is the smallest unit that can carry out all of the activities of life. All living things are made up of cells. Some organisms are a single celled such as bacteria and yeast and some like us human are made of of many different kinds of specialized cells. See p.43 in barrons, p.6 in campbell, p.11 in modern biology. Lets go over some of the basic characteristics of living things. Get ideas from class, see note below.
Organization
Energy Use response to the environment
reproduction
growth and development
homeostasis
evolutionary adaptation
Compare how nonliving things do not exhibit these characteristics
A second major theme is the relationship between structure and function. If you had to nail two pieces of wood together, what tools would you use? If you had to remove a swithplate from a light switch on the wall, what sort of tools would you use. Why would you not use a fork to eat soup? how a device works is correlated with its structure, form fits funciton. p. 9 in campbell. Just as will the tools, the same holds true in biology. For example, the stucture of a birds wing is such that is makes flight possible. This concept of form and funciton holds true all the way from the sub cellular level all the way up to the shape of the entire organism. Birds beaks, different beaks for different foods.
A third major theme in biology is Ecology. Ecologists study living things and how they ineract with one another and their environment. How are you interacting with your environment right now? (Five senses)
Sight
Sound
Touch
Smell
Taste
breathing
At the core of the ecosystem model of biology is the concept of energy transfer. Who has heard the term energy transfer before? p.10 campbell. Can anyone tell me the first law of thermodynamics? Energy can neigher be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another. Also known as the law of conservation of energy. campbell p. 93
What is the primay source of all energy on earth? The sun
Which organisms are the primary capturers of this energy and what is that process called? Plants, Photosynthesis, make sugar and other complex molecues. Organism that harvest energy are call producers.
organisms like us that eat the producers are called consumers
The 4th major theme in biology is classification.
All organisms in biology are classified by grouping organism together that are similar. Biologists have identified and named over 1.5million speices and thousands more are identified each year. Originally this system was based on shared physical characteristics that biologist observed. However, once more details about life's processes became apparent, it was realized that shared physical characteristics could cause problems when grouping organism. Whale, fish. How are they similar? How are they different? All are more closely related to other organisms than to each other.
Whale: K-Anamalia, P-Chordata, subP-vertebrata, C-mamalia, O-cetacea
Fish:K-Anamalia, P-Shordata, subP-vertebrata, C-Agnatha,Chrondrichthyes, Osteichthyes
Human K-anamalia, P-Chordata, subP-vertabrata, C-mamalia, O-Primate
Now the tendency is to also use DNA in classification which shows relationships based similarity of gene sequesces.
There are five major Kingdoms
Anamalia-contains all animals
Plantae-all plants, mostly made up of photosynthetic organism
Fungi-mostly decomposers that break down dead organisms and waste
Monera-bacteria
Protista,Protoctista-leftover, mostly unicelluar eukaryotes
Will go into more deatail in each Kingdom as study it.
King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup
Finally Evolution. If there is anysingle unifying theme in biology it is evolution. At its core, evolution is based on the genetic code contained in DNA.
Chemistry
Scientific Method p.29 modern biology, p. 15 campbell, p14 in barrons
Microscope, p.39 in barrons, hair, lab books.
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