Return to the top of this document.

First hour- presentation by the visiting scientist.
Second hour- discussion of an article relating to the first hour presentation.

For the last three or four classes, we will have short student oral presentations. The class may be split into smaller groups for the oral presentations.

Return to the top of this document.

 Class attendance and participation in discussions  40%

 In order to actively engage all students, each student will be asked to read a short article relating to the lecture topic of the day and to submit 2 carefully-considered questions relating to that topic at the start of that class. These questions should be of an analytical or critical nature, and they will be evaluated along with the papers and oral presentation described below. A copy of the article will be on reserve for Bio 201 at the Science Learning Center (1720 Chem. Bldg.) a week before each class. We recommend that you copy the article and make notes on the article as you read it.

Attendance and active participation in discussion of the assigned readings is essential if students are to benefit from this class, therefore role will be taken each week. A student will have his or her course grade lowered by one full letter if he or she has more than one unexcused absence. If you know in advance you will have to miss a class because of a religious holiday, an athletic contest, a family occasion such as a relative's wedding or any other event that cannot be easily rescheduled, this will not count as an unexcused absence, as long as you notify your professor in advance. You should be prepared to document this need. If you are ill or have a family emergency that does not allow you to give advance notice, you will need to bring written evidence documenting the situation (such as a note from your physician) if this is to count as an excused absence. For each excused absence beyond 1, you will be required to submit an additional short paper.

All students are required to submit two short papers (2 printed pages or less). The first short paper will be due on Jan 23 (week #3), and the second on Apr 10 (the last class).

Paper 1 - Comparison of a journal article with a corresponding news article. Find a description of a recent biological discovery in a newspaper. This should be in basic, not applied, biology. Then, locate the original journal article on which the newspaper article was based. Write a paper no more than two-pages long comparing a) the way that the importance of the results were presented in the Introduction and Discussion of the journal article with b) the way the results of the journal article were presented in the newspaper. Submit a Xerox copy of the newspaper article and the journal article with your paper. See further guidelines concerning this paper.

Paper 2 - Interpretation of experiments. Find one journal article by a scientist (other than the professor in charge of this class) who is on the UM Faculty in some area of biology. Again, this should be in basic, not applied, biology. From the Methods section of this article, select one key method and describe that method and what information it gave the investigator in a paper no more than two-pages long. Submit a photocopy of the journal article with your paper.

Each student will make an oral presentation of approximately 7 minutes about the journal article that they read for paper 2. In contrast to the written papers, the oral presentation should focus mainly on the 2 or 3 most important results obtained; however, the presenter should be sure to give enough of an introduction that other students will understand what the investigators were trying to study (the basic question) and what they found. Presenters are asked to provide the professor in charge with a copy of the paper they will describe at least 2 days before the talk.

During the oral presentations, each member of the audience will be asked to write down a question that comes to mind about each talk and then submit them at the end of the period. This is counted toward the participation described above.

---

Return to the top of this document, or go to


the Bio 201 Class Schedule or to
the Biology Department Course List or to
information on the Biology Department Honors Program or to
the Biology Department Home Page