Syllabus
- Exploring Biology
BCOR
011, Fall 2008
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Instructors:
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Eugene Delay, Ph. D. 113 Marsh Life Science Office Hours: TBA Phone: 6-0455 E-mail: edelay@uvm.edu |
Rona Delay, Ph. D. 104 Marsh Life Science Office Hours: TBA Phone: 6-4086 E-mail:
rdelay@uvm.edu |
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Carmen Hernandez, Ph. D. 111 Marsh Life Science Office Hours: TBA Phone: 6-0454 E-mail:
chernand@uvm.edu |
John Mitchell, Ph.D. 111 Marsh Life Science Office Hours: MW 1-2pm Phone: 6-0454 E-mail: John.Mitchell@uvm.edu |
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Donald
Stratton, Ph. D 328 Marsh Life Science Office Hours: TBA Phone: 6-9731 E-mail: Don.Stratton@uvm.edu |
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Laboratory
Coordinator: |
Academic
Coordinator: |
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Janet
Woodcock-Mitchell, Ph. D. 007
Marsh Life Science For
an appointment call 6-9976 email:
jwoodcoc@uvm.edu (Lab experiment inquiries) |
Deb Maddalena 118 Marsh Life Science Office hours: MW 1-2pm Phone: 6-5801 E-mail: dmaddale@uvm.edu
(All Student inquires related to course, excluding lab experiments) |
Course Description
BCOR 11 will cover topics in Chemistry of Life, Cell
Structure and Function, Cellular Reproduction, Life Cycles, Genome Organization
and DNA Technology. All readings referred to here are chapters within the
assigned text which is
Required Texts
Pechenik, J. A.
2003. A Short Guide to Writing About Biology,
ed. 5 or 6.
Grading
There
will be three hourly exams (one will be dropped) and a cumulative final
exam in this course. You may drop your lowest midterm exam grade.
Your final grade will consist of an average of your two highest midterm grades,
your final exam, lab grade, and homework assignment grades. The point
breakdown is as follows:
|
Hourly
exams (2 grades, 100 pts each) |
200 |
|
Laboratory
|
200 |
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Cumulative
Final
(1/2 sect 4, ½ cum) |
200 |
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Homework
Assignments
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100 |
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Total |
700 |
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The
final exam will be cumulative. Midterm hourly exams are scheduled on
9/26, 10/20 and 11/14. There will be a common final exam for all sections
of the course, the time and date of which will be announced. Check your
exam schedule for other courses and see your professors immediately if you need
to reschedule a midterm or the final exam.
There
will be no make-up exams and midterm exams will not be rescheduled to accommodate travel
plans during the semester. A missed exam will be counted as the one dropped
midterm grade. The only legitimate excuse for rescheduling an exam is if
you have three exams scheduled on one day or you are required to be off-campus
for a university sponsored event or religious holiday. In such cases you may
schedule to take the exam early, but not late. Discuss this with your
instructor as soon as possible. If you should miss an exam and then have
some emergency that causes you to miss a second, you must provide written
documentation of your emergency in order not to have a 0 counted in your
grade.
Strategies for Getting
an "A" in This Course
COME
TO CLASS.
We often hear students say they don't bother to come to class because
"it's all in the book." You have no way of knowing what
material we emphasized or how without coming to class. Most students
cannot skip class regularly and still do well in this course.
KEEP
UP.
There is a lot of material covered in this course, do not expect to learn it the
night before the exam! And it is VERY helpful to have read the material
before you come to class.
TAKE
ALL OF THE EXAMS.
Do not use your privilege of dropping your lowest exam
grade as an excuse to "blow off" one of the
exams. What if you are ill for the next one? Since we give you an exam to
drop, illness does not merit a "make-up" exam. If you are ill
and cannot take an exam, that will be the exam you
drop. The final is cumulative. Learning the material for each mid-term
exam will make studying for the final that much easier.
TAKE
ADVANTAGE OF HELP.
If you are having difficulty, or simply need clarification of some of the
material, see either your laboratory Teaching Fellow or one of the instructors.
We all hold office hours and intend for that time to be used helping students.
But if you don't seek us out, there's no way for us to know that you're
struggling. Remember... academic honesty
is expected of all students. If you are caught cheating on an exam, you will
receive a zero for thaat exam. That score cannot be the one you
drop. All laboratory reports MUST be written individually.
You
may also qualify for extended time to complete exams. Find out through UVMs
Access Office (www.uvm.edu/~access/). You will be
responsible for following their procedures and deadlines should you choose to
use their educational support services.
Academic Honesty
Academic honesty is expected of all students. TheUniversity of Vermont has a very strict policy concerning academic honesty and plagiarism. Please see the statement on academic honesty http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmppg/ppg/student/acadintegrity.pdf .
Plagiarism
Plagiarism constitutes a violation of Academic Honesty and warrants failure on an assignment and/or failure in the course. Plagiarism of ANY sort - e.g., copying part or all of a fellow student's report, copying from original references, texts, or websites - will NOT be tolerated.
The consequences of plagiarism or cheating range from a score of zero on the assignment or exam, to filing a complaint with the Universitys Coordinator for Academic Honesty which can result in expulsion from UVM.
Email etiquette: Communicating by electronic mail has become commonplace. Your Instructors and Teaching Fellows will make every effort to answer your emails promptly. Please return the courtesy by responding. Also, please address your queries respectfully. Hey does not fall in this category, and any such messages will be ignored (perhaps the best litmus test is to ask the following: if you were looking for a job, would you greet your prospective new employer in that manner?). Also, be sure to indicate which course/section you are enrolled in. Most instructors have multiple courses/sections that may cover different material and/or employ distinct policies. If you want an appropriate answer to your particular question it is important to be precise!
Religious Holidays: Students should submit
in writing to their instructors by the end of the second full week of
classes their documented religious holiday schedule for the semester.
Students who miss work for the purpose of religious observance will be allowed
to make up this work.
Topic
Outline for BCOR 011
Introduction (Chapter 1)
- levels of biological organization, emergent properties, structure and
function, the process of science
The Chemical Context of Life (Chapter 2)
- atomic structure, chemical bonds, chemical reactions
Water and the Fitness of the Environment (Chapter 3)
- polarity of water, unique properties of water, pH scale, buffers
Carbon and the Molecular Diversity of Life (Chapter 4)
- chemistry of carbon, functional groups
The Structure and Function of Macromolecules (Chapter 5)
- polymers, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic acids
Tour of the Cell (Chapter 6)
- kinds of cells, nucleus, endomembrane system, membranous organelles,
cytoskeleton, cell functions
Membrane Structure and Function (Chapter 7)
- membrane structure, selective permeability, passive and active transport,
transporters
An Introduction to Metabolism (Chapter 8)
- metabolic pathways, energy transformations, ATP, enzymes, control of metabolism
Cellular Respiration, Harvesting Chemical Energy (Chapter 9)
- redox reactions, glycolysis, fermentation, Krebs cycle, electron transport
chain, chemiosmosis and ATP synthase
Photosynthesis (Chapter 10)
- nature of light, light reactions, chemiosmosis, making sugar,
photorespiration, C3, C4 and
Cell Communication (Chapter 11)
- reception, signal-transduction pathways, protein phosphorylation, second
messengers, cellular responses
The Cell Cycle (Chapter 12)
- importance of cell division, mitotic cell cycle, regulation of the cell cycle
Meiosis and Sexual Life Cycle (Chapter 13)
- sexual life cycles, meiosis
The Molecular Basis of Inheritance (Chapter 16)
- evidence DNA is genetic material, DNA structure, DNA replication and repair
From Gene to Protein (Chapter 17)
- transcription, the genetic code, translation, protein synthesis in
prokaryotes and eukaryotes, point mutations
Regulation of Gene
Expression (Chapter 18)
- Bacterial Operons, Transcriptional control in Eukaryotes, Post-transcriptional processing, control of Development, cancer
Viruses (Chapter 19)
- Virus structure, life cycle, disease
Biotechnology (Chapter 20)
- The molecular biology tool box, DNA cloning, applications
Genomes and their Evolution (Chapter 21)
- Sequencing, Genome size and organization, Gene number, Gene Families, repetitive elements and transposable elements, Genome alterations and evolution