Conservation Biology - Course Goals

Conservation Biology Course Description:

This course is designed to be a general education course for non-biology majors.  It presents an introduction to the major issues related to species and ecosystem preservation with particular reference to mechanisms of change and human impacts on the environment.  The course focuses on biodiversity and its origins, habitat loss, species extinction, exotic species and their impacts, and opportunities for human intervention in alleviating trends in species loss and ecosystem degradation.  These goals will be met via lectures and readings, small group activities, discussions, graded assignments, and a limited number of local field trips.

 Expected Student Outcomes for the Course:

By the end of the semester, students will:

o          Understand and apply the scientific method and generate testable hypotheses

                                            i.      Recognize the difference between scientifically testable questions and those that can only be   addressed by religion, philosophy, art, or other “ways of knowing”

o         Collect, summarize and interpret data (especially graphs)

o         Understand the mechanisms of evolution:

                                            i.      Natural selection

                                           ii.      Basic Mendelian genetics

                                         iii.      History of life and extinction

o         Begin to realize how species interactions create complex, interconnected ecosystems

o         Understand what causes the creation and maintenance of biological diversity at multiple levels/scales

o         Recognize the current major threats to biological diversity

o         Realize the challenges of and modern approaches to conservation of biological diversity

o         Debate the value of preserving biological diversity, and discuss various rationales for or against preservation

Cooperative Group Learning:

The format of this course may be somewhat different than what you experience in other classes.  A growing body of research shows that we humans learn best by doing and by having opportunities to be actively engaged with new material and new concepts as they are introduced.  It is not always easy to convey information in this manner, and so many courses rely on lectures as the primary mode of communication.  In an attempt to honor the results of recent research, we will use a cooperative learning model as the scaffolding for our work together this semester.  Short lectures, sometimes augmented with slides or other images, will be interspersed with small group activities where each one of you will have an opportunity to think, experiment, discuss, question, and try out new ideas.  You will need to find a group of people to work with (groups of 3 or 4 work best), and they will become your constant companions in this class.  All group members will be expected to contribute equally to group efforts, and will be held individually accountable, but will also benefit from the opportunity to both learn from and help teach their peers.  This is usually a very rewarding approach to learning and community building.

We will take some time our first day to form these cooperative groups, and to outline our expectations of each other in this class, and to set up some rules of common courtesy we can all agree on; I’ll post copies of these rules once they’re established.

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