Introductory Life Science Course

This course is a discipline-based content course for pre-service K-8 teachers and other nonscience majors interested in exploring the diversity of life, the role that humans play in the biological world, and the socioscientific issues that influence our daily lives.

Course Intent and Design:

Is antibiotic resistance the end of modern medicine? How do genes matter? What are biological and ethical implications of gene editing? Why should we care about biodiversity? The central goals of this course are to advance students’ interest in science and their scientific literacy – which, as defined by the National Science Education Standards, is “the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity” (p.22; NRC, 1996). The concepts introduced in this course will provide a broad foundation in biology that will help inform a student’s life as a citizen, consumer, patient, naturalist, and future educator.

Course Concepts and Learning Objectives

This course will be organized around core concepts and competencies highlighted in the NSF Vision and Change (2011) framework and other education literature. Please note that many of these objectives overlap with the Virginia SOLs that we will routinely discuss.

  • Core Concepts – these concepts will be used to organize the class and specific objectives will be provided prior to each unit.
    1. Evolution: The diversity of life over time by processes of mutation, selection, and genetic change
    2. Structure and function: Basic units of structure define the function of all living things
    3. Information flow, exchange, and storage: The growth and behavior of organisms are activated through the expression of genetic information in context
    4. Pathways and transformation of energy and matter: Biological systems grow and change by processes based upon chemical transformation pathways and are governed by the law of thermodynamics
    5. Systems: Living systems are interconnected and interacting
  •  Core Competencies