Bio 185: Diversity of Organisms Supplemental Laboratory Syllabus Orange Coast College Course Syllabus Fall Semester 2013 (August 26 December 15, 2013) See the last page for some coupons! Lab times: T&Th 11:10 2:20 pm and T&Th 4:00 7:10pm Lab location: Bio Sci 206 Instructor: Marc Perkins E-mail: mperkins@occ.cccd.edu Web page: http://faculty.orangecoastcollege.edu/mperkins Phone: 714-432-5847 x2 Office Location: Bio Sci 212B Review session for Bio 185 (office hours): Friday 11:30 12:45pm in Bio Sci 206. Office hours: Monday 10:45 11:45am & Wednesday 2:30 3:15pm. Office hours by appointment as well. Required texts: See the lecture syllabus for full details. To summarize, you will need a lab notebook, the lab manual, the 1 st edition of Morris et al. s Biology, How Life Works, and the 5 th edition of McMillan s Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences. Supplies needed: Access to a computer with word processing software, Adobe Acrobat Reader, a printer, and internet access is required (and supplied by the college). Prerequisites: Biology 180 or 180H with a grade of C or better. Field trip: There will be one required weekend field trip to a rocky intertidal area at Crystal Cove State Park. There are two possible days to attend the field trip, either Friday or Saturday November 15 or 16 though there will be a limit to the number of students that can attend each day. The trip will start at 11:00am each day and continue until approximately 5:30pm. Students will meet at Orange Coast College and will be transported to the field site in OCC transportation. Students may be required to pay an entry or parking fee at the park. The trip will include walking up and down stairs, hiking along sandy beaches, and extended periods working in a wet rocky area far from amenities. Students who are not able to attend the field trip will get no attendance credit for that day, and will be required to do a makeup assignment. Please see me as soon as possible if you have any questions or concerns regarding this trip. Use of organisms: Because the topic of this class is biology, we will use either live or dead organisms in the vast majority of labs. We will not dissect any vertebrate animals, though we may dissect invertebrate animals, plants, and fungi. Some labs will entail working with a range of live organisms, including mice, insects, snails, plants, fungi, protists, bacteria, archaeans, and other organisms. If you have any questions about or anticipate having problems working with these organisms, please see me as soon as possible. Safe environment: Free and open discussions in this class will be critical. However, as some of the topics we will be discussing may be controversial and highly charged, please keep discussions on a professional level at all times. 1
Grading and assignments: 1. Laboratory examinations There will be two laboratory exams, each covering material presented up to that point in the semester. Exams will be completed in class and will be almost exclusively a mix of fill in the blank, drawing, and short answer questions. Exams will focus primarily on the anatomical, life history, and taxonomic traits of the lineages introduced in lab; spelling will be graded. The laboratory exams will each be worth 80 points. 2. Laboratory notebooks Most organismal biology experiments last weeks, if not months or years, and thus any organismal biologist conducting an experiment must keep good records of their work. These records are typically kept in a lab notebook, and are essential when writing papers and sharing data (it's surprisingly easy to forget what you did yesterday, not to mention last year!). Your notebooks will be a record of your experimental work in the lab (including each experimental lab's question, hypotheses, methods, data, and conclusions), and will be kept in the lab room. The lab notebooks will be graded sporadically throughout the semester (possibly without notice), and will be worth 50 points over the course of the semester. Guidelines for maintaining the notebooks will be available elsewhere (including in the lab manual); see the schedule for an indication of which labs will use the lab notebook. Students arriving to class without the day s lab manual will not be able to receive a full grade on the notebook entry for the day (e.g., they will lose 1 point on it for being a bit late). 3. Laboratory exercises ( worksheets ) Each lab that doesn't involve recording information in your lab notebook or an exam will have an assignment due at the end of the period; the assignment will be completed in lab and is due at the end of lab, unless otherwise specified (e.g., a few worksheets are due at the start of lab). Each lab exercise will be worth 5 points. The total number of laboratory exercises completed will depend on the number of labs offered during the course and the number of labs that use the laboratory notebook. Students arriving to class without the day s lab manual and worksheet printed will not be able to receive a full grade on the assignment for the day (e.g., they will lose 1 of 5 worksheet points). 4. Pre-lab quizzes Preparing for class by reading the day s lab ahead of time is one of the keys to succeeding in lab. To encourage you to read before lab, a selection of labs will have quizzes at the start. The quizzes will be relatively short (approximately 5 short answer questions) based entirely on the material in the lab manual for the day s lab. Each quiz will be worth 5 points, and will start immediately at the beginning of lab. 5. Journal articles Two of the experimental labs will have a journal article (laboratory report) written for the lab in addition to the laboratory exercise / laboratory notebook. This journal article will be written in the style of a published scientific paper, and is designed to give you experience writing in a scientific style and analyzing experimental results. These journal articles will be written individually, not in groups. Individuals writing separate papers that are based on the same experiment must work entirely separately on their papers; any shared content (excluding raw data and statistical output) will be considered plagiarism. Grading will be based on many factors, including the quality of the original experimental design, thoroughness of background research, ability to explain methods used, completeness of data analysis, clarity of written and graphical work, proper formatting, and correct spelling and grammar. Each journal article will be worth 30 points and must be typed; the first journal article will have a draft version due prior to the final version, which will be worth 10 points. Journal articles are due at the start of the lab period on the day indicated on the schedule. Note: the second journal article can be replaced by making a scientific poster; see below. 6. Scientific Poster One of the primary methods of presenting research at scientific meetings is to create posters that summarize the experiments researchers have performed on a topic. To help expose you to this style of presentation, one of the experimental labs may have a scientific poster created for it. Specific guidelines 2
for the poster will be provided in class and are available in Pechenik s book. Grading will be based on a number of components, including the quality of the experiment the poster is based on, thoroughness of data analysis, clarity of the written work in the poster, and visual presentation. The poster may be completed in place of the second journal article. Students will work individually, and will need to irrevocably choose whether they are writing a journal article or making a poster before the assignments are due. The poster will be worth the same number of points as a journal article, must be typed, and is due at the start of lab on the day indicated on the schedule. 7. Experimental proposals Before scientists conduct experiments, they must get funding to carry out their work. To do this they submit grant proposals, documents that contain a summary of the research the scientist hopes to complete, along with background information that shows why the proposed research is important and should be funded. To give you a glimpse of what this type of proposal is like, you'll write an experimental proposal before conducting two of the experimental labs this semester. The experimental proposals will be worth 15 points each, and must be typed. 8. Participation Much of the work done in lab will be completed in groups, and actively participating in your group will be key to your success. Thus, 15 participation points will be awarded to each student who actively participates in the lab activities for the duration of the class. Not arriving to lab on time, leaving lab early, not helping your group, and not actively participating in lab for the full duration of the lab period, will all decrease your participation grade. 9. Re-grading I, like most other humans, have been known to make mistakes. Because of this I am more than happy to go over returned assignments with you to attempt to clarify any questions and/or fix any grading mistakes. However, I ask that all regrading requests be made within two weeks of the assignment s return. 10. Grading summary Journal article rough draft 10 points Participation points 15 2 experimental proposals 30 1 journal article 30 1 journal article or poster 30 1 lab notebook (on ~9 labs) 50 * 11 * lab quizzes 55 * 19 * lab exercises 95 * 2 lab exams 160 Total 475 * * - The total number of lab exercises, quizzes, and lab notebook entries may vary; thus the number of points possible in the lab may vary as well. Grading policy: Lab points are combined with lecture points into a single grade; see the lecture syllabus for more information. If the total number of points for lab is different on the lab and lecture syllabuses, the lab points will be scaled to the total number of points specified on the lecture syllabus. For example, if a student got 150 out of 200 possible points in lab, but the lecture syllabus specified that lab was only worth 100 points, then the student would get 75 points for lab in the context of lecture. Assignments for which the majority of the class received extremely low grades may be adjusted to account for the difficulty of the assignment. The instructor may deduct points from students assignments if they do not come to lab prepared to carry out the assignments (e.g., they arrive at lab without the day s lab manual or worksheet printed). 3
Important dates: Last day for withdrawal with nothing on transcript Sept. 8 Last day for withdrawal Nov. 16 Final lab exam date Nov. 26 Attendance policy: Attendance is mandatory for this course. You may miss up to three days of lab with no penalty; however, additional unexcused absences may result in your being withdrawn from the class without notice. If you are absent for a lab that has a journal article or other written assignment due based on it for an excused reason, you may turn in the journal article (see the late/missed work policy), acquiring data as decided by the instructor. If you are absent for an unexcused reason you may not turn in the journal article or other written assignment for the lab you missed. To encourage good attendance, anyone who has missed no days of lab at the end of the semester will get an additional 5 points of extra credit. Excused absences count against this perfect attendance, the sole exceptions being official absences for school functions and religious holidays. Missing a significant portion of a lab (e.g., being 20 minutes late) will be counted as an absence with regard to this perfect attendance extra credit. Late/missed work policy: There will be no make up laboratory exams and quizzes for unexcused absences; excused absences can make up the lab exams and quizzes, but except in the case of genuine emergencies I must be notified (by phone or e- mail) before the exam takes place to arrange a makeup exam for an excused absence. Makeup lab exams and quizzes may be administered in a different style than the primary in-class exam. Posters, journal article drafts, and any assignment required for in-class work may not be turned in late, though journal articles may be turned in late. Late assignments will be reduced in points by 15% of the total points available for the assignment per day the assignment is late. Weekends and holidays count towards the number of days an assignment is late. If you want to turn in a late assignment over a weekend or holiday, please e- mail it to me or contact me to arrange a drop off. Assignments that were missed due to an excused absence may be turned in late without penalty (subject to the exceptions listed in this section); contact your instructor as soon as possible to arrange a makeup deadline. In general, makeup assignments must be turned in within a time period no longer than twice the amount of time that was missed due to the excused absence. For instance, if you have an excused absence for one week, any work you missed in that one week must be turned in during the two weeks following your return to class. However, all missed assignments must be turned in within four calendar weeks of the original assignment's due date (or by the end of the semester, if that is within four weeks of the missed deadline) for them to count towards the course grade, even if the work was missed due to an excused absence. Absence policy: See the lecture syllabus. Academic honesty: See lecture syllabus. Incomplete policy: See lecture syllabus Audio/video recording: See lecture syllabus Disability accommodations: See lecture syllabus Sexual harassment and discrimination: See lecture syllabus Student Learning Outcomes: See lecture syllabus 4
Turn in any one laboratory worksheet one lab-day late without penalty. This coupon valid only for one lab exercise/worksheet due at the end of lab only. Coupon must be attached to the front of the exercise when it is turned in. This coupon may be copied and/or reproduced, but each person may only use a maximum of one coupon of this type per semester. Attempts to use additional coupons will result in an automatic grade of no credit on the assignment in question. Expires December 15, 2013. Free pass: arrive to lab one day without the lab manual or worksheet. This coupon valid only for one lab day only. Upon presentation of coupon student will not lose points for failing to print out the lab manual or worksheet ahead of time for any one day of lab. This coupon may be copied and/or reproduced, but each person may only use a maximum of one coupon of this type per semester. Attempts to use additional coupons will result in an automatic loss of all points on the assignment in question. Expires December 15, 2013. Turn in any one journal article one day (24 hrs.) late without penalty. This coupon valid only for one journal article only; it does not apply to posters. The journal article must be submitted within 24 hours of its original deadline for this coupon to apply, and this coupon must be attached to the front of the journal article when turning in the paper copy. This coupon may be copied and/or reproduced, but each person may only use a maximum of one coupon of this type per semester. Attempts to use additional coupons will result in an automatic 20% point loss on the assignment in question. Expires December 15, 2013. 5