Quantitative
Thinking in the Life
Sciences Fall 2012-2016:
PSS 381
Course
description:
The goal
of this course is to build
a quantitative foundation
and develop tools to help
you think about and
analyze your specific
project in the life
sciences. We will focus on
learning fundamental
principles to assure a
solid background that will
help in sampling design
and analysis, as well as
provide the building
blocks for further
quantitative study. This
course will concentrate on
thinking about your
project, the questions
driving your system, and
the data that will be
needed to answer your
scientific questions.
Additionally, you will
build a foundation for
working with R, which is
widely considered the gold
standard in the life
sciences for statistical
analysis and modeling.
Ecological
Gaming Fall 2013, Spring
2013 & 2014 : HCOL 185, HCOL 186
Course
description:
Ecological
gaming will examine
ecology through the lens
of a computer simulation
games and challenges.
The overarching goal of
this course is to instill
a foundation of ecological
concepts by breaking down
ecological complexity into
simple, digestible pieces.
As a class, we will
examine spatially-explicit environments which
will allow a discussion of
some of the essential
building blocks of life
and life strategies
including examine
single population dynamics
(resource needs, fecundity
strategies, growth rates,
lifespan, phenology,
reproduction type,
dispersal, movement and
behavior, within-species
competition and
density-dependence). The
course will continue by
looking at species
interactions (e.g.,
competition, mutualism,
predation, trophic levels,
trophic cascades, food
webs). Finally, ecosystem
level biocomplexity will
be examined by looking at
how ecosystem components
could influence evolution,
ecosystem stability and
chaos.
A simulation challenge
might include manipulating
predator attributes in an
ecosystem e.g.,:
A simulation
of interactions between a
plant species (trophic level
1), an herbivore (trophic
level 1), and a predator
species (trophic level 1).
