Concepts in Ecology and Evolution – BIOL135
This course is one of five core courses required of all biology majors and it is typically taken during students’ first semester at UNCA. It focuses on principles and theories relating to whole organisms. Specifically, we examine the subdisciplines of evolutionary biology, ecology, and behavior – huge areas of biological study of which we can only touch the surface in one semester. As a result, the course is intensive and challenging. There are no prerequisites for this course, students are expected to be familiar with the basic aspects of biology and chemistry from high school.
Experimental Design, Data Analysis, and Presentation – BIOL134
BIOL134 is the foundation course in scientific methods and presentation for Biology majors. In it, students will learn experimental design, sampling methods, data collection, and basic statistics and their interpretation in the context of three experimental exercises. We will spend considerable time learning about how data are presented to the scientific community through constructing graphs and tables of data, writing scientific reports, and preparing oral presentations. Two assignments will focus on written presentation of experimental methods and results. The final project will be a group oral presentation in which students place experimental results in the context of the scientific literature.
After completing the course, students will be able to design experiments to test hypotheses, use the programming language R to perform the most common statistical tests, and prepare written and oral presentations appropriate for biological disciplines. These skills will be applied throughout the Biology curriculum and form the basis for all laboratory coursework.
Principles of Zoology – BIOL210
This course introduces students to the diversity of life forms in the animal kingdom. I emphasize the evolutionary relationships among organisms, evidence of homology across organisms that reflects their shared ancestry, and unique adaptations that distinguish each group of organisms. As part of the core required courses of the Biology curriculum, the course builds on the concepts and principles presented in Ecology and Evolution and Cell and Molecular Biology, both 100-level courses. The laboratory portion of the course offers students the opportunity to observe and investigate animal forms through exposure to a combination of live and preserved specimens and dissections.
Animal Behavior – BIOL360
The study of animal behavior is a truly integrative field of biology. It requires understanding of physiology, sensory systems, natural history, evolutionary processes, and ecology, as well as a keen understanding of experimental design and hypothesis testing. In this course, we will examine all aspects of animal behavior from the mechanisms that control behavior to the evolutionary processes through which behavioral patterns have evolved. I will provide you a broad background in topics within the discipline that will help you view behavior from a new perspective as well as help you place what you observe within an appropriate context. In addition, I will be teaching you the basic skills you need to study animal behavior and to think critically about hypotheses. We will study the behavior of a broad range of taxa and our laboratory work, with focus on insects, fish, and mammals.
Critical thinking and strong communication are necessary in all professions and are just as applicable to the process of science as to the social sciences and humanities. This course integrates the Inquiry-ARC model and extensive practice in writing to develop skills in thoughtful, succinct, and reflective communication.
Vertebrate Zoology – BIOL344
Vertebrate Zoology has traditionally been taught as an intensive survey course of vertebrate form and function. Dr. Chris Nicolay and I take a novel and exciting approach in teaching this course by focusing on hot topics and techniques in the study of vertebrate systems. As a result, we begin with a brief introduction to the major vertebrate groups and then quickly turn to our more topic-based approach.
Each week’s lectures introduce a new field and set of case studies that culminate in Friday’s lab. Each week’s lectures and lab are organized by one of us with each of us presenting topics throughout the semester. In the spring of 2012, we took the course on three field trips. The first was to the Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg, TN. The second was to the Bent Creek area to collect data on egg mass constraints in a pond-breeding salamander. The final field trip was to the salmon fish hatchery in Brevard, NC.
Reproductive Biology – BIOL424
I have designed this course to integrate evolutionary biology and reproductive theory with reproductive physiology and genetics. In doing so, I aim for it to appeal to a broad range of students, including those with interests in health professions, animal biology, and botany. Specifically, we will examine reproductive biology from evolutionary and organismal approaches.
We begin with the evolution of sex, anisogamy, and mechanisms of sex determination. The course will progress to examining mating systems, life histories, and reproductive strategies of plants and animals. We will also study reproductive physiology of major groups of animals, with emphasis on vertebrates. This course nicely complements Zoology, Genetics, Physiology. Class time is heavy on discussion of reading material, with lectures to solidify content. Labs are a combination of computer-based activities, class experiments, specimen study/dissections, and field trips.