Plant Biology 102 & 102N Summer 2004, 2^nd Term Syllabus and FAQ

Welcome to plant biology 102. This class is intended to augment and extend your knowledge of plants and their interactions with human society. Although we will review some of the most fundamental aspects of the origin, anatomy and physiology of plants, the emphasis of this class will be practical issues such as modern plant biology research, developing news stories and exploring ecological and geopolitical issues that will affect us all. Since this is a non-major's class, we will also take some time to discuss general issues about the nature and role of science in contemporary society. Ultimately your mission over the next four weeks is to: 1) Learn about some key aspects of plant biology, especially those aspects most important to humans. 2) Learn how the history of the Earth’s plant life has shaped the planet and our society. 3) Learn about different types of plants that exist today, their functions within the ecosystem and the many uses that humans have found for them. 4) Learn how the process of plant science impacts human experience today and in the future.

A strong background in science is not required, although some basic knowledge of chemistry and biology will be assumed. It is likely that there will be a considerable range of student backgrounds and learning goals in this class. We will try to navigate the middle ground, but please be willing to ask if you think you need additional help or if you would like to be additionally challenged. Your education is whatever you choose to make it. I am willing to customize your experience to some extent, so that every student learns as much as possible and achieves at a level that is appropriate for their background, ability and goals.

 

The summer 2004 second term (4 week) version of PB102 is loosely based on the quarter-long version of PB102, but note that there are some content, policy and organizational differences. Do not rely on documentation from other versions of this class. Because of the highly compressed time scale, please be tolerant and understanding of last minute changes to the schedule and content, especially in laboratories involving live plants (which occasionally choose not to cooperate). Be sure to pay close attention to email communication and respond to any instructor requests in a timely manner when appropriate.

 

The Basics:

Lecturer:  Rob Day Email: day.3@osu.edu

MSN instant message name: invasifspecies@hotmail.com

Phone: mobile: 294 2178 office: 292 7189

 

Class web site: http://140.254.31.4/plant_biology102/index.html

Everything you will need for the class will be on this site (eventually).

Office hours: It has been my experience that students rarely take full advantage of scheduled office hours, nonetheless, I will be available in my office at 200E 1929 Kenny Road from 1.00pm until 3.00pm on Thursdays. This building is near the Lennox center. It’s a bit out of the way, but there is ample guest parking. I am also available at other times by appointment. You will find me highly approachable and willing to talk about biology with you because I honestly enjoy it. Please email, call or instant message me ahead of time to be sure I can meet with you.

 

Lecture time:
Daytime class: 209 Campbell Hall M W F 9.30 –11.18.

Night class:     209 Campbell Hall M W    6.30 – 9.18 (note – this class has been moved from 335 Campbell Hall).

Ongoing road-work in this area makes access a little difficult. Be prepared to park some distance away and walk to class.

 

Final Exams:

Daytime class: Room 209 Campbell Hall 9.30 am Wednesday August 25^th.

Night class: Room 209 Campbell Hall 6.30 pm Wednesday August 25^th.

(These may be rescheduled to correspond to regular class time. Stand by for details.)

 

GRADUATING SENIORS – please let me know who you are!

 

Lab TAs:
Kanchen Puttaswamy. email puttaswamy.1@osu.edu

Tawanda Zidenga. email zidenga.1@osu.edu

Srilakshmi Makkena. email makkena.1@osu.edu

 

 Labs are in room 122 of Jennings Hall (formerly Botany and Zoology Building) on Neil Avenue.  Ongoing road-work in this area makes access a little difficult. Be prepared to park some distance away and walk to class.

 

Required Texts and Technology Requirement:

 

The Biology 102 Lab manual is required and is available at Cop-ez on Neil Ave.

Please note that this is the standard manual used for the 10 week version of this class. Specific details of scheduling, organization and policy will NOT necessarily be the same as listed in the lab manual.

There is an optional textbook: "Introductory Botany" by Linda Berg. I will give you page numbers that may help as supplemental readings for this class, but most of the material you need to know for the exams will come straight from the web or your lecture notes.

 

If you do not have a strong background in biology I also recommend a biology dictionary such as “A Dictionary of Biology” (Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, 4th edition, ISBN: 0192801023.

An example of suitable online biology dictionary is here:

 

http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary.asp

 

A list of additional biology dictionaries is available here:

 

http://www.sciencekomm.at/advice/dict.html#bioGls

You must have access to a computer for this class. The lecture notes and many of the assignments are web-based and most communication will be via email.

 

Technological aptitude and computer problem-solving skills should be considered a mandatory part of any 21st century citizen's education. If you do not own a computer you can use any of the free computer labs on campus (Baker Systems is open 24 hours) or consider purchasing a cheap, old but adequate machine from University Surplus at:

 

http://www.ctlr.ohio-state.edu/tot/public/default.asp

Email: For the purposes of this class you MUST use your OSU email address (with format lastname.n@osu.edu). This is necessary so that I can keep track of adds and drops by comparing email addresses with the roster and so that I can verify your identity if necessary. If your OSU account is not active or you do not know how to use OSU mail, you should contact OSU tech support for assistance:

http://8help.osu.edu/

I may also be able to help you with technical issues.

You will receive frequent emails from me that you MUST read. Some email discussions will be distributed to the entire class so that we can attempt to establish a forum for the discussion of biological issues, however, to maintain student privacy, only I will see your email address. Please be careful not to publicly distribute other students’ email addresses if you already know them. Use BCC (blind carbon copy) if necessary, but generally, route email only though me or your TA.

Please enter "pb102" in the subject field for all 102 related email. I get hundreds of emails each day so I use my computer to sort it automatically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments:

 

Lab worksheets  - 80 points. One per lab, eight labs total (2 worksheets each week). Each worksheet is worth 10 points. Sorry, no make-ups, however, if you absolutely cannot make a lab you may arrange to visit another lab, if it is offered again in the same week.  Note that students in the night class actually complete TWO labs each time they meet, so be sure to fill in and submit two worksheets.

Lab reports - 40 points. Submit ONE formal lab report consisting of an abstract, an introduction (with literature review), results (with data presentation) and a discussion section. Generally these will describe the nitrogen fixation experiment or the plant competition experiment (although this is negotiable). Formal lab reports of this type will be about 5-6 pages long. They are expected to be of a high standard and you will almost certainly need to rewrite them at least once. This is normal for all scientific writing. Make sure you get them in early so that your TA can return them with suggestions for improvement. You will be allowed to revise them as many times as you like to bring up your score, although the final version must be ready by the deadline.

 

OR

 

Submit THREE journalistic review articles, two for any of the exercises you did in lab (please include your actual data) and one describing any other plant science research that you find interesting, preferably at Ohio State. Each journalistic report is worth 13 points and will be about 1-2 pages long. We’ll even give you one point to get you started. Imagine that you are reporting the findings of the experiment for the science section of a newspaper like the New York Times. Reports of this kind should be clear, concise and lively. Imagine that you are writing it for readers with only a little science background who may be directly affected by your experiment, perhaps a farmer or gardener. You can choose whether you will write the report as a journalistic observer assigned to cover the story, or in the “first person”, perhaps as a press release that you have written to reveal the details of your important experiment (!) Be sure to look at some science news articles on the web to familiarize yourself with this writing style.

Whether you choose to use a formal or journalistic style, be sure to include: 1) the basics of what you did. 2) What you saw or found. 3) The limitations or problems with the study. 4) What the study means, including its deeper implications for the reader or for society. Final deadline for this assignment is

 

I am somewhat flexible on the format of these lab reports and may consider accepting “equivalent” work (worth 40 points) of your choosing. See me or your TA for details.

 

Note: we will search the internet for any evidence that your work has been lifted from another source without proper credit. Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct. See below for details:

 

http://oaa.osu.edu/coam/faq.html#whatisacademicmisconduct

 

Pre-lab questions,  “lecture goodies”, and online research, collectively called “homework”- 40 points. Short, simple assignments and / or questions that will be distributed (with instructions) via email. The pre-lab questions will encourage you to do some preparatory reading for your upcoming labs. The lecture goodies (mainly questions based on lecture material) will (hopefully) help to keep you awake and penalize you for poor lecture attendance. There will be no make-ups for these. “Homework” may also include some flexible research project(s) that will allow you to explore things that you find interesting, generally via the World Wide Web. 40 points total, (10 points each week). Submit homework as a hardcopy or email to your TA by Monday of the following week.

Midterm exam - 50 points. Multiple choice and short answer. This exam will not take long since we need the lecture time!

Final exam - 150 points. Multiple choice and short answer, comprehensive. The final will be much longer than the midterm but many of the questions should look familiar.

About the exams:

To do well in this class you will need to study. If you do not study at all you will probably fail. Careful analysis of the performance of my previous students in this type of class makes it very clear that the biggest single reason for poor performance is simply not putting in the hours necessary to LEARN the material. Reading over your notes is not enough. You must use repetition, frequent re-writing of lists and figures, and multiple reviews of scientific terms, concepts and diagrams if you are to remember this material in sufficient detail to reproduce it accurately during the exam.

Remember – since we cover the same material in 4 weeks that we would normally do in a whole quarter, you will have to allow twice as much study time each week as you normally would for this class.

 

The final will be comprehensive but will emphasize material covered since the midterm. Some of the questions will be very similar to those used in the midterm, so be sure to review any mistakes.

The exams will consist of two sections. The first section will include simple multiple-choice questions designed to test your general familiarity with the lecture material (and, to a lesser degree, the lab material). I will email you some examples of the kinds of questions you can expect.

The second section will consist of short answer questions designed to test your comprehension of what we have discussed. I invite you to submit your own questions for this portion of the test. If I like your question I will email them out to everyone so that everyone can see it BEFORE the exam. Obviously, the more questions you collectively submit, the more familiar you will all be with the exam before you actually take it. I reserve the right to modify student submitted questions before I send them out.

Grading Summary:

For your convenience your scores for each individual assignment will be available via Course Sorcerer at:

https://newman.uts.ohio-state.edu/CourseSorcerer

 

You will need your OSU username and password to view your grades.

 

Approximate Grade Boundaries:

>90 % = A, >80 % =B, >70 %= C, >60 %=D, <60%=E

In a typical class of forty students I expect:

2-5 As, 6-12 B's, 8-15C's, 4-10 D's, 1-4 E's

Having said that, I have been teaching long enough to know what I can expect and if you all deserved A's you will all get them. (This has never happened and is extremely statistically unlikely).

As a further approximate guide to your performance - take the arithmetic mean score of the class and add ONE standard deviation to find the B-C boundary and TWO standard deviations to find the approximate A-B boundary. I will distribute the means and SD's occasionally via email. The magical power of statistics is such that grade boundaries calculated this way usually fall very close to the approximate scheme given above.

Actual final grade boundaries as well as plus and minus boundaries will be decided at the end of the quarter in order to best reflect the overall class performance and distribution of scores.

 

 

 

Make up policy:

Because of the condensed nature of the 2nd term class, attendance in all labs and lectures is required. No make ups will be possible although students may make special arrangements to "switch" lab sections for a one time conflict.

Students with disabilities:

Any student with special needs or learning requirements should make themselves known to the instructor (in person or via email) at the beginning of the quarter.

 

Tentative Lecture Schedule PB102 (DAYTIME CLASS):

1	M July 26th	What is science?
		Why study science?
		Quick review - 10 important things about plants
2	W July 28th	Entire history of everything (abridged).
		Origin of life
		Erasmus Darwin
		Charles Darwin
3	F July 30th	Evolution
		Classification
		What is a clade?
4	M Aug 2nd	Genetics
		Plant cell basics, endosymbiosis
5	W Aug 4th	Make friends with the algae.
		Invasion of the land
6	F Aug 6th	Plant diversity; mosses and ferns, really old plants.
7	M Aug 9th	More plant diversity; conifers and angiosperms
8	W Aug 11th	Basic plant ecology
9	F Aug 13th	Midterm exam
		Nitrogen and Carbon cycles
10	M Aug 16th	Conservation issues
		Food supply and demand
11	W Aug 18th	Biotechnology
12	F Aug 20th	More biotechnology, plant products
13	M Aug 23rd	Modern research case studies
	Misc	News and views URLS as time permits.
		Last day of class
	24th-26th	Finals week

 

Tentative Lecture Schedule PB102N (NIGHT CLASS):

 

1	M July 26th	What is science?
		Why study science?
		Quick review - 10 important things about plants
		Entire history of everything (abridged).
		Origin of life
2	W July 28th	Erasmus Darwin
		Charles Darwin
		Evolution
		Classification
		What is a clade?
3	M Aug 2nd	Genetics
		Plant cell basics, endosymbiosis
		Make friends with the algae.
4	W Aug 4th	Invasion of the land
		Plant diversity; mosses and ferns, really old plants.
5	M Aug 9th	More plant diversity; conifers and angiosperms
6	W Aug 11th	Midterm exam
		Basic plant ecology
		Nitrogen and Carbon cycles
7	M Aug 16th	Conservation issues
		Food supply and demand
8	W Aug 18th	Biotechnology
		More biotechnology, plant products
9	M Aug 23rd	Modern research case studies
	Misc	News and views URLS as time permits.
		Last day of class
	24th-26th	Finals week