Print Page
Biology 2 (BIOL 2202)
Total Credits:
4
Lecture Credits:
3
Lab Credits:
1
Description:
This course presents a series of fundamental concepts in biology, focusing on the theme of the unity and diversity of life. You will examine three broad topics: evolution (Darwin's theory, evidence of evolution and the history of life, including humans), organismal biology (the classification and diversity of life based on morphological and anatomical characteristics, life cycles and the evolutionary history of prokaryotes and eukaryotes), and ecology (components and functioning of ecosystems, bio-geography and conservation). The course includes two hours of laboratory instruction per week.
Topical Outline:
1. Origin of Life: Describe our understanding of the chemical and physical conditions on early Earth and the hypothesis of a chemical evolution that preceded the transition towards living cells
2. Evolution by natural selection: Explain the history of evolutionary ideas from before and after Darwin's and Wallace's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, the many aspects of the evolutionary processes within populations and the implications for biological classification based on evolution
3. Discuss the main steps in evolution from the first prokaryotic organisms to that of multicellular organisms
4. Discuss diversity of and evolutionary trends in prokaryotes, fungi, animals, plants and protists and discuss their placement in Kingdoms and Super-groups using criteria from systematics, cladistics and phylogeny
5. Discuss anatomical, morphological and reproductive characteristics of fungi, animals, plants and protists
6. Ecology: Introduce the main principles of ecology at the level of the individual organism, population, community, ecosystem and biosphere
Learning Outcomes:
1. Explain the different ideas that exist about the origin of life
2. Explain the development of the theory of evolution and our current understanding of the evolutionary processes
3. Explain and apply the basic principles of cladistics. Students will be able to use critical thinking skills to build a phylogenetic tree for a given group of organisms
4. Recognize features of the major life forms of prokaryotes and eukaryotes and the main anatomical and morphological structures of some representatives of the animal and plant kingdom and demonstrate skills for working with the microscope and simple dissection skills
5. Present through writing and oral presentation our current understanding of the history and classification of life
6. Understand and apply knowledge in ecology and apply critical thinking as to how ecology relates to evolution and the environment
Prerequisites:
BIOL 2200
MnTC: