Welcome to BIOL 1403! This is an introductory biology course designed for life sciences majors. This course aims to introduce you to a broad range of ideas and questions within the field of biology covering the cell cycle, the central dogma, genetics, and metabolism. Together, we will investigate a variety of questions, like “how do mutations affect our proteins?” We also aim to provide you with the framework and tools by which scientists try to make sense of the living world. Biology is vast, and our time is limited. You should see this course not only as an introduction to the principles of biology but also as a place where you can develop lifelong analytical and critical thinking skills that will enable you to continue your learning beyond this course.

To aid in these goals, we are asking you to prepare for class each day by reading a textbook chapter and answering embedded questions that we wrote specifically for you in this course. These assignments are designed to orient you to the subject we will be working on in class that day and introduce you to key terms and concepts. We will then spend the class period engaging in the more challenging aspects of the material and solving problems. You will then re-engage with these ideas and practice applying them in post-class assignments. This high-structure design is based on cognitive science and education research about how learning works. We have carefully designed the course to provide you with ample opportunity to learn and practice developing and applying your skills.

COURSE-WIDE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

There are four, broad, course-level learning objectives. You will also be given a longer, more detailed and specific list of learning objectives that align with every assignment, class activity, and assessment during each of the 5 units. At the end of this course, students will be able to…

• Apply concepts in cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics to predict and explain how disruptions (e.g., mutations, medications) will affect an organismal system.
• Design experiments to test hypotheses.
• Interpret data figures to evaluate hypotheses and draw appropriate conclusions.
• Write reports that succinctly, accurately, and transparently communicate the rationale, design, and results of a scientific study.