Syllabus
also at: www.morehouse.edu/facstaff/lblumer/BIO320L
Laboratory
Manual may be downloaded at:
www.morehouse.edu/facstaff/lblumer/BIO320L/manual
Thursday,
1-5pm, Room 311 Hope Hall
INSTRUCTORS:
Lawrence Blumer, 302 Hope Hall, lblumer@morehouse.edu
Sarah
Stabenfeldt, 301 Hope Hall, stabs@gatech.edu
telephone: (404) 653-7873
Office
Hours: MWF 1-2 pm and by appointment
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#1 |
Natural Selection and Evolution (design and start
experiment) |
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#2 |
Competition in Bean Beetles I (design and stage
cultures) |
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22-Jan |
TH |
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#1 |
Natural Selection and Evolution (measure founders) |
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5-Feb |
TH |
#2 |
Competition in Bean Beetles I (measure emerging
adults) |
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#3 |
Competition in Bean Beetles II (start experiment) |
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Discussion on evaluating posters – Review
Research Posters |
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12-Feb |
TH |
#2 |
Competition in Bean Beetles I (measure emerging
adults) |
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#3 |
Competition in Bean Beetles II (collect results and
discuss) |
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#4 |
Population Growth and Competition in Bacteria |
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Introduction to Library Research tools. |
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Woodruff Library, Electronic Classroom #2,
3:30-5:00 pm |
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Research Poster due Tuesday, 17 February by
e-mail |
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(PowerPoint
template distributed via e-mail) |
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19-Feb |
TH |
#2 |
Natural Selection and Evolution (collect data and
discuss) |
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#2 |
Natural Selection and Evolution (collect data and discuss) |
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Data files and graphs due Tuesday, 3 March by
e-mail |
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5-Mar |
TH |
#5 |
Induction of Secondary Chemical
Defenses (design experiment) |
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Seminar presentations on Natural Selection and
Evolution experiment |
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12-Mar |
TH |
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Spring Break – No Classes |
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19-Mar |
TH |
#5 |
Start Induction of Secondary
Chemical Defenses |
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(review experimental design and conduct damage
treatments) |
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26-Mar |
TH |
#5 |
Induction of Secondary
Chemical Defenses (start bioassays) |
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27 Mar |
F |
#5 |
Induction of Secondary
Chemical Defenses (collect
results) |
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Research Poster due
Tuesday, 31 March by e-mail |
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2-Apr |
TH |
#6 |
Aquatic Ecology 1,
Physical-Chemical Factors (Field Trip) |
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9-Apr |
TH |
#7 |
Aquatic Ecology 2,
Characterization of Trophic Levels |
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Assignments for Final
Laboratory Seminar distributed |
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16-Apr |
TH |
#8 |
Forest Diversity Study
(Field Trip) |
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23-Apr |
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Final Laboratory
Seminar Late arrivals will lose
one point for each minute of tardiness. View video on Global
Climate Change and Discuss. |
Laboratory Manual
The
laboratory book for this course, Laboratory Studies in Ecology, is available
on-line at www.morehouse.edu/facstaff/lblumer/BIO320L/manual Download and read the upcoming
laboratory protocol before the laboratory meeting. In addition to the laboratory book, you will need a
hardbound composition book, pens, pencils, and USB 32MB (or larger)
flash-memory ÒDisk-on-KeyÓ. You
will only need one USB flash-drive for use in both laboratory and lecture.
Laboratory
Notebook
Your
hardbound laboratory notebook is the repository for all your laboratory notes,
raw data records, calculations, data analysis results, and preliminary figures
and tables. This notebook must be
brought to every laboratory meeting and every field trip. Many of the experiments we perform
required the pooling of data to create a class data set. Your classmates will be counting on you
to keep neat, accurate, and up-to-date data records on each of the studies you
perform.
Course
Grading
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Laboratory Attendance (12 x 25
points each) |
300 points |
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Two Research Posters (100 points
each) |
200 points |
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Library visit and Friday data
collection (50 pts each) |
100 points |
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Mid-Semester Seminar |
100 points |
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Final Laboratory Seminar |
100 points |
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Total = |
800 points |
Letter
grades will be assigned as described below:
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A |
= |
90 |
to |
100% |
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A- |
= |
88 |
to |
89% |
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B+ |
= |
86 |
to |
87% |
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B |
= |
80 |
to |
85% |
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B- |
= |
78 |
to |
79% |
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C+ |
= |
76 |
to |
77% |
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C |
= |
70 |
to |
75% |
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C- |
= |
68 |
to |
69% |
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D+ |
= |
66 |
to |
67% |
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D |
= |
60 |
to |
65% |
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D- |
= |
58 |
to |
59% |
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F |
= |
57% and less |
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Laboratory
Attendance
The most important work we will do this semester is the actual design and conduct of ecological experiments. Therefore, your attendance and participation in our weekly meetings will constitute 37% of your grade in this course. It is virtually impossible to make-up laboratory exercises. The first excused absence (for an unscheduled absence with a note from the Academic Dean or Dean of Students) from a laboratory meeting will simply excuse you from the work conducted in that laboratory period. No make-up will be given. A second excused absence from a laboratory meeting will result in an Incomplete. All laboratory work that was excused must be completed in the following semester to remove the grade of Incomplete. Scheduled absences for such activities as athletic teams, attending an interview, or studying for another course will result in the loss of 25 points for each absence (even with a valid excuse). Class will begin promptly at 1:00 pm and we will leave for field trips without waiting for late individuals. Attendance at the Library session on February 12 (during class time) and bioassay data collection on Friday, March 27 will each be worth an additional 50 points. Absence from these activities will not be excused. All students in this course are expected to be present for the entire scheduled class time. If you have a scheduling conflict, you will be unable to complete this course.
Laboratory Safety
á No food or drink is to be brought into the laboratory
under any circumstances.
á Dress appropriately! Fancy clothes invariably get stained in a laboratory, and
ruined in the field. Closed toe
shoes must be worn at all times.
á Clean-up spills when they occur. At the end of the laboratory, clean
your area, and put equipment and supplies away as instructed. Laboratory clean-up is necessary at the
end of each class. Sinks are not
to be left containing any waste or glassware. We always leave our laboratory cleaner than we found it.
Research
Posters
Two Research Posters will be due
the week after you complete specific laboratory studies. The posters you will prepare are to be
organized in much the same manner as a Research Report. Each poster must have a descriptive
title and your name should be given under the title. There should be an Introduction, Methods, Results,
Discussion and Literature Cited.
Each
Research Poster should be organized as follows:
a. Title
(give your poster a descriptive title) and include your name after the title
line.
b. Introduction (statement of purpose and introduction
to the phenomenon being investigated)
c. Methods (a concise description of the treatments
performed and the manner in which data were collected)
d. Results
(prose description of
data, and in tables or figures)
e. Discussion
and Conclusions (specific
discussion-interpretation of the observed results)
f. Literature
Cited (a minimum of five
references must be cited)
Unlike
a Research Report, the text in a poster is best kept to a minimum and may be
presented as bulleted phrases. Use
graphs, tables and other illustrations to show your findings and make the
poster visually interesting. A
sample poster may be put on display to give you an example to emulate. The evaluation rubric for the Research
Poster is given at the end of this syllabus.
Disability Accommodation
Morehouse College is
committed to equal opportunity in education for all students, including those
with documented disabilities. Students with disabilities or those who suspect
they have a disability must register with the Office of Disability Services
(ÒODSÓ) in order to receive accommodations. Students currently registered with the ODS are required to
present their Disability Services Accommodation Letter to faculty immediately
upon receiving the accommodation.
If you have any questions, contact the Office of Disability Services,
104 Sale Hall Annex, Morehouse College, 830 Westview Dr. S.W., Atlanta, GA
30314, (404) 215-2636, FAX: (404) 215-2749.
Disclaimer
This syllabus is not a contract. The instructors reserve the right to
modify it at their discretion.
Academic Honesty
Although much of the work we do in
this course will require that we pool data and construct a single class data
set, each of you is expected to do your own work on all assignments, quizzes,
and posters. You will be expected
to make your own figures and tables and write your own prose for these
assignments. Copying or
paraphrasing someone elseÕs prose (from a fellow student or a published
reference), using someone elseÕs figure or table (even if it is based on the
same data as a figure or table you could make) or submitting someone elseÕs
work as your own is plagiarism.
Simply copying and pasting the statistical analysis output that I send
to you for each experiment is not acceptable for presentation in either your
poster or your seminar presentation.
Giving a literature citation is not sufficient. I require that you submit work that
you have written yourself in your own words. Writing with long quotations
(even if fully referenced) will not be accepted. Leaving your work on a laboratory computer hard-drive so
other students may freely copy that work is not advised, as it will result in
accusations of plagiarism against both you and dishonest students who submit
your work as their own. At a
minimum, plagiarism will result in a grade of zero for the assignment in
question and a report to the Dean of Students.
Mid-Semester
and Final Laboratory Seminar
Each of you will prepare and
present a brief (10 minutes) review of the purpose, results, and conclusions of
our Natural Selection and Evolution study (Mid-Semester) and one of the studies
(or a part of one of the studies) we conduct during the semester (Final
Laboratory Seminar). You will be
required to prepare a PowerPoint presentation and present your seminar from a
computer projector. You should be prepared to answer questions about the study
you present. You must be able to
discussion the meaning of the results and how the results address the question
and hypotheses posed in the study you are presenting. These seminars are meant to help us review the work we have
done this semester and put it all into a larger context. Think about how different studies are
interrelated.
Your seminars will be evaluated for
clarity, organization, and accuracy.
Each presentation will count for 100 pts. My laboratory seminar evaluation form is attached. I will be happy to discuss the format
and content of your seminars prior to your presentations. Please dress as you normally would for
the laboratory. If necessary, I
will conduct a demonstration of the PowerPoint Presentation program in class.
The Final Laboratory Seminar
assignments will be distributed in class on April 9, 2009. Seminars will be presented in Room 311
Hope Hall at our last scheduled class meeting, Thursday, April 23. We will begin promptly at the start of
the scheduled time and late arrivals will lose one point for each minute of
tardiness.
ECOLOGY
LABORATORY, BIOLOGY 320L Name______________________________
Morehouse
College, Spring 2009
Laboratory Seminar Evaluation (100 points possible)
Introduction (20 points) _____
Results (20 points) _____
Discussion and Conclusions
(20 points) _____
Format, Audience, Clarity (20
points) _____
Quality of Visual Aids (20 points) _____
Class Participation (1 extra
point for each thoughtful question)
________
Tardiness (deduction of one
point for each minute late) (_______)
BIO 320L Ecology Laboratory, Research Poster
Evaluation (100 points possible)
Poster Title _____________________________
Poster Author
_________________________ Score (_____ 100 points possible)
Title (______ out of 10
points possible)
Title
describes both the question and the system being studied: 10 points
Title
describes either the question or the system: 5
points
Title not
descriptive, such as ÒExperiment #1Ó or missing: no points
Introduction (______ out of
20 points possible)
Statement of question addressed,
statement of hypotheses to be tested, and context for the current study
provided: 20 points
Statement
of question and alternative hypotheses given, but context missing: 10 points
Statement
of alternative hypotheses missing:
5 points
Statement
of question missing: no points
Methods (______ out of 10
points possible)
Description
of the treatments including the control and a summary of the study
protocol: 10 points
Description
of treatments and summary of protocol, but control not identified: 6 points
Descriptive
summary of protocol given but treatments not described: 5 points
Description
of methods limited to a list of materials: 2 point
Methods
missing: no points
Results (______ out of 20
points possible)
Statistical summary of findings
(average values, total counts for each treatment) in prose and in the form of graphs or tables,
and a prose description of the findings:
20 points
Statistical summary of findings
(average values, total counts for each treatment) in prose and in the form of graphs or tables,
but no prose description of the findings:
10 points
Statistical
findings only in the form of graphs or tables: 5 points
Raw data
presented without statistical summaries:
no points
Discussion (______ out of 20
points possible)
Interpretation of results to reject
hypotheses and address the question posed in the Introduction, and provide a broader context on the
meaning of the findings: 20 points
Interpretation of results to reject
hypotheses and address the question posed in the Introduction, but no context
on the meaning of the findings provided:
10 points
Interpretation of results to reject
hypotheses provided but the question posed in the Introduction not
addressed: 5 points
Interpretation of results to reject
hypotheses and address the question posed in the Introduction not
provided: no points
Literature Cited (______ out
of 10 points possible)
Scientific literature (minimum of
five books or journal articles, government or university researcher websites)
cited in both the Introduction and the Discussion to provide context. In text, citations use Author, year
method and full citation provided in Literature Cited: 10 points
Scientific literature cited in both
the Introduction and the Discussion to provide context. In text, citations use Author,year method,
but Literature Cited missing or contains references not cited in the prose of
the Poster: 5 points
Scientific literature cited in
either the Introduction or the Discussion but not both. In text, citations use Author,year
method: 5 points
Scientific literature not cited in
prose of Poster, but a Literature Cited or References list provided: 2 point
Scientific
literature not cited and Literature Cited or References missing: no points
Format (______ out of 10
points possible)
Poster is appropriately organized
with Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Literature Cited sections. Writing is for an informed external
audience: 10 points
Poster is appropriately organized
with Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Literature Cited sections. Audience inappropriately focused on the
instructor or the class context: 5
points
Poster is organized with Results and
Discussion confused or one section of Poster format missing: 2 point
Poster is not organized with
Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Literature Cited sections: no points
Academic Honesty
If any one of the following is true,
the score for the entire assignment is zero.
Direct quotations from another
student or a published source without quotations marks or without attribution.
Direct quotations (with minor
editing) presented without quotation marks or without attribution.
Extensive use (more than one
sentence) of direct quotations with quotation marks and attribution.
Reprinting graphs or tables prepared
by another student.
Reprinting graphs or tables from
published source without attribution.