Plant Biology covers a variety of
topics common to all organismal courses, and some that are unique to this
course. We use a number of themes throughout the course to unite all of
these topics.
1) Structure, function and
diversity of plants.
2) Environmental and economic
issues such as pollution, food shortages, global warming.
3) Diversity of life histories
exhibited by organisms other than animals.
4) Change in biodiversity over
geological time.
5)
Thinking critically about biological processes and phenomena.
There are a number of resources
available to you in this course, and you should take advantage of all of them.
1) First is the lecture session,
which will make use of Powerpoint slides,
videos, web resources and live materials. Files containing the Powerpoint
slides are available on Blackboard and on the computers in the lab. You can make
b/w handouts of these slides as a basic noteset for the lectures, but is not a
substitute for attending lectures and taking your own notes.
2) The second is the textbook and
its associated web page - note the link to it on the main page for 304. All
material discussed in class is also discussed in the text, and students should
use the text as the ultimate source of information. The text is also used
heavily in the laboratory portion of the course.
3) The lab manual and the
laboratory session will cover all the concepts discussed in lecture using
living and preserved material. This course is completely integrated so that
both the lecture and the laboratory are designed to prepare you for your exams.
4) Finally, your
instructors are available at any time by e-mail and always by appointments.
Also plan to utilize the web links we provide to generate background
information about subjects. These are chosen because they lead you to many
other web resources that are impossible for us to maintain on our website.