LBIOL4126 General Biology II with Lab Course Descriptor

Course Summary

This course explores some of the basic principles of biology, with a focus on features shared by all living organisms and comparing prokaryotes (bacteria and archaebacteria) and eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi and protists). Throughout the course, students will acquire an understanding of evolutionary processes and biological diversity. Some of the areas explored will include: the evolution of the structural and functional diversity of organisms; the integrative biology of multicellular organisms; and the ecological relationships at the population, community, and ecosystem levels. In labs and in-class sessions, students will be given the opportunity to collect and analyse biological data, and will develop the knowledge necessary for further study in biology and related disciplines. The content is complementary to a previous course on molecular and cellular biology.

The course offers students an opportunity to understand how the scientific method has been developed, and how it is used to address biological questions. Accompanying laboratory classes offer students an opportunity to explore biological diversity through hands-on experimentation as well as simulations.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include:

A minimum of 50 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, worksheets and laboratory tasks, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.   

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books

Clark MA, Douglas M and Choi J (2022). Biology 2e (2^nd Edition). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/details/books/biology-2e. Print ISBN-13: 978-1-50669-985-1, Digital ISBN-13: 978-1-947172-52-4.

Indicative Topics

Students will study the following topics:

• Origin and history of life, including major periods of geological time, the fossil record and the role of changing environmental conditions and mass extinctions in the evolution of life.
• Theory of evolution, evolutionary mechanisms and the evolution of populations and species.
• Taxonomy and systematics, phylogenetic trees and the principles involved in grouping organisms on an evolutionary tree
• Physiology and behaviour of the main clades of protists, fungi, plants and animals.
• Interaction between humans and other organisms and their environment, and its implications on climate change, habitat destruction and loss of biodiversity.