ISB 204 Applications of Biomedical Sciences

Fall 2002

Section 005, Tuesday and Thursday, 8:30 - 9:50 AM, 108 Bessey Hall

INSTRUCTOR AND ORGANIZATION

Prof. Stephen C Bromley, 344 Natural Science Building, phone is (517) 353-4611, e-mail is , is the instructor of this course and will give most of the lectures, formulate and administer exams, supervise grading of written materials, and assign grades. My office hours are on Wednesday and Friday, 2 to 3:30, or as modified or arranged. Some few lectures may be given by guest lecturers in their area of expertise, and a few films and TV tapes may occasionally be shown during lecture time. The course itself is solely a lecture offering; the corresponding laboratory course, ISB 208L, is separately listed and offered. Undergraduate teaching assistants for this course have not yet been appointed. They soon will be, and when they are, they will be introduced to the class, and their e-mail addresses will be listed. They will help to grade written assignments, assist with preparation of lecture exams, schedule and hold lecture review sections, and be available for individual student consultation.

GRADES

Grades in this course will be based on four items. These are:

  1. Lecture Exams

These exams will be multiple choice tests, and will be scheduled twice during the semester, at times indicated in the course schedule. Each of these “hour” exams will be about an hour long, and will contain about fifty questions; each will count about 15% of your grade. If you miss an hour exam, there will be no make up exam. If you provide an excuse written by an appropriate person for a University-approved excuse, your grade will be based solely on the other hour exam, the final, and the grades you have otherwise earned. If you do not provide such an excuse, you will be issued a zero for the missed exam, which will be accounted in your final grade. The final exam will be scheduled by the university during finals week, and will contain about 100 questions, and will count 30% of your grade. In the event you cannot take the final, you must report to the dean of your college, and follow University procedures. The content of these exams will be material presented in lecture, and that in reading assignments in your text book up to the time of the test. The lecture material covered will include material that is also covered in your textbook, and material that is not covered in your textbook, particularly that which will be introduced in connection with several recent and pertinent new items, which will be brought to lecture and discussed with you several times during the semester. Material in the textbook which has been assigned but not discussed at much length in class will also appear on these tests.

  1. Written Assignments

Two written assignments will be due at times indicated on the course schedule. Each assignment will require a paper that is two or three typed pages long, written by you, upon a topic chosen by you from a list of topics that will be provided to you. You will include with the paper copies of your sources when applicable, and your paper will be graded for both scientific merit, and the clarity of your writing. Each paper will count 15% of your grade; together they will count 30%.

  1. Short Unannounced Quizzes

During some lectures, bubble response sheets will be distributed, and one or two questions will be asked. These questions can be answered by a drawing, selection of a multiple-choice answer, or a sentence or two. Altogether, your answers to these questions will count 10% of your grade.

  1. Class Absences

Attendance in class will be monitored with ID card scanners. Excessive absences will reduce your grade.

Your grades on vital items, such as points 1, 2, and 3 above will be on absolute scale. You will be given a grade on each factor according to prearranged and announced criteria. I shall not grade this course on a curve; you are in competition only with yourself, not with the rest of the class.

OBJECTIVES

The course description indicates that this course will have an emphasis in cellular, developmental, and genetic events and will attempt to draw relations between those events and human concerns.

Another aspect affecting our objectives is contained in a document outlining goals of Integrative Studies. To paraphrase them, they are,

  1. Learn what “knowing” is in the arts and in the sciences.
  2. Learn better how to evaluate evidence and logical arguments.
  3. Learn about other science related issues at other times and places.
  4. Learn the utility of the scientific method in understanding natural and social worlds.
  5. Appreciate the role of knowledge values and ethics in understanding human behavior and solving social problems.
  6. Recognize some responsibilities and opportunities associated with citizenship in a democratic society and in an increasingly interconnected world.

Thus we have a lot to cover, and we will try to do it in two primary ways. These are:

  1. The lectures will introduce some scientific words and concepts without which one cannot quite follow much of the actual foundation of science, and further attempts to realize many of the goals of the course will be futile. Readings in the textbook will reinforce these aspects, but will not in every case duplicate the lecture material.
  2. You must become comfortable looking at the leading edge of science and making your own questions and conclusions. Part of several lectures will be devoted to an examination of one or two such recent articles, and your two written assignments will be similarly addressed. You will soon receive a separate sheet detailing possible topics of these papers, and other aspects of their production.

READINGS AND LECTURES

The textbook required for this course is Starr, C., Biology, Concepts and Applications, 5th ed. (Brooks/Cole, 2003), and the following reading assignments are in that book. Supplemental material may also be given either as assigned and/or supplied readings, and additional material will certainly be presented in lecture and put on the course web site. Films, TV tapes, and other demonstrations will also be used in lecture. Reading assignments are nowhere burdensome, but it is important not to fall behind if you wish to do well on exams.

Since substantial additional material and directions that will be given in lecture will be important for your good performance in the course, it is crucial that you personally actually go to lecture. It is also easy to demonstrate that someone else going to lecture for you and giving you their notes afterwards cannot earn for you a grade as high as you would have got had you done it yourself.

27 AUG Introduction, Course Format, Basic Questions in Biology pages 1-18

29 Life as Change. The Evolutionary Theory 237-259

03 SEP “ “ “ “ “ “ 05 Life as Chemistry. Basic Chemistry 20-33

10 " " " Biological Chemistry 34-51

12 FIRST HOUR EXAM

17 Life as Cells. Membranes 52-91

19 “ “ “ Structure

24 “ “ “ Energy and Cells 92-107

26 “ “ “ Cellular Respiration 108-124 01 OCT “ “ “ Photosynthesis FIRST PAPER DUE 03 Life as Diversity. Origins 290-309 08 “ “ “ Some Organism Types 310-339 10 “ “ “ “ “ “ 340-404 15 “ “ “ “ “ “

17 Life as Information. RNA and DNA 190-211 22 “ “ “ Gene Activity 212-236 24 “ “ “ Cell Reproduction 152-171 29 “ ” “ Genetics 172-276 31 SECOND HOUR EXAM 05 NOV Life as Replication. Reproduction and Development 472-507 07 “ “ “ “ “ “ SECOND PAPER DUE 644-682 12 Life as a Machine. Sensory Formation 14 “ “ “ “ Muscle and Skeleton 538-553 19 “ “ “ “ Regulator Formation 521-537 21 “ “ “ “ Reproductive Behavior as supplied

26 “ “ “ “ Circulation 554-575 03 DEC “ “ “ “ Defense Formation 576-595 05 As arranged

09 DEC FINAL EXAMINATION, Held in 108 Bessey Hall, 7:45 – 9:45 AM