Syllabus, Ecology, Biology 301 Spring
2007
Class meetings: Hardman Hall, room 114 (the Biology building, Foster Hall, is closed for renovations). MWF 1:30-2:20 PM
Instructor: Dr. Vince Gutschick
Office: Biology Annex, room 103. (The Annex is south of the Astronomy Builiding, which is on the Frenger Mall; the Annex has a tall Italian cypress by its north door.) My office hours are tentatively set as 1:30-2:30 Tuesday and Wednesday; we can figure out optimal hours in class. If you would like to talk with me at another time, please schedule an appointment.
email: vince@nmsu.edu; as we begin to use WebCT in class, the best email will become that address in WebCT.
Office Telephone: 646-5661 (I don’t have voice mail, so messages by email are better).
If you have any questions, comments, problems or suggestions please don’t hesitate to come in and talk to me. I enjoy talking with students, and I modify the course in response to student’s comments. I may modify this syllabus during the semester to improve the course. Any changes will be announced in class. You are responsible for being in class and being aware of any such announcements.
This syllabus contains many strict guidelines and policies to help you understand my expectations of students in BIOL 301. Individual problems will arise that I have not considered while making these guidelines. If you have a problem in the classroom or outside of the classroom that is affecting your work, please come in and talk with me.
Course Website: The course Website will be set up in WebCT, which most of you have used. It will take a week or so to have the course up and running. This Website will have the syllabus, plus the exam keys and your grades in near-real-time. I will post other material, as well. (In the past, I posted lecture notes, but this seems to have had a very negative effect on studying; students would use the notes to the exclusion of reading the book or even coming to class; I am rethinking whether I will post any such material.)
Textbook: Ecology: Concepts and Applications, 4th Edition, by Manuel C Molles (one of our UNM colleagues), softcover, 640 pages. ISBN-13 9780073309767. It is available in the campus bookstore, at essentially the same price as at amazon.com. It’s pricey but it has lots of extras - study aids, etc. I like the organization of the book better than that of alternative texts; it should be easier to learn from it than from the other texts.
I will follow the book in topical order, though I will not read the book in class. Class time will be devoted to a discussion of the chapters that you have read in advance. I will try to post lecture notes shortly after class, as outlines, not transcripts (you wouldn’t want to wade through a transcript - it’s like reading a court proceeding, a stultifying exercise; sorry, any future lawyers!). The outlines will help you see what I think is important enough to give a phrase or a sentence, or a major heading.
Course Goals This course is designed to provide students with a broad introduction to ecology. Ecology is a diverse field of study which relates to many other academic topics, such as evolution; as well as applied issues, particularly in the environmental sciences. The goal of this course is to help you develop the ability to access, critically evaluate, and apply ecological knowledge. As you work toward this goal you will be expected to meet the following objectives:
Develop an understanding of fundamental ecological concepts associated with the study of biomes, ecosystems, communities, populations, and individuals.
Explore and synthesize the relationships among ecological topics.
Communicate about ecology with clarity and precision.
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of ecological theory.
Apply ecological theory, in your career or as an informed citizen.
Evaluation & Course Activities Your grade will be based on exams and assignments. The schedule on the last pages of this syllabus indicates when you will take exams, in-class essays, and when the lab reports are due. Your grade will be based on the following items:
|
Three midterms, each worth 100 points |
300 |
|
Final exam with
100 point associated with material covered since the last midterm, Note If your score on the comprehensive section of the final is greater than your score on your lowest midterm (3 midterms or midterm section of final), I will replace your lowest midterm score with your score on the comprehensive portion of the final. |
200 |
|
Assignments: Assignments, including quizzes taken in WebCT, will be described in class & on the course website. The total number of points associated with assignments could change during the semester. If it does, such changes will be announced in class. |
100 |
|
In-class writing (short comments; I will explain this in first class). These will be asked for about every third class |
120 |
|
Total points in the course |
720 |
Your grade will be based on the your percent of the total possible points. There are no extra credit assignments. The grading scale is as follows:
|
GRADE |
PERCENT SCORE |
|
A |
90 – 100 |
|
B |
80-89 |
|
C |
70 – 79 |
|
D |
60 - 69 |
|
F |
< 60 |
Student’s taking the course on an S/U basis must earn at least 70% to receive an S. Exams may be curved, so that exam questions can be distributed over a significant range of difficulty to challenge the most engaged students while generating a grade distribution that the class as a whole will appreciate. The WebCT site for the course will give detailed explanations of how your grades are being computed; you will know how you stand at any time in the course.
I will grant excused absences for documented illness and university functions, if the conditions explained below are met, and some other emergencies. Contact me as soon as possible after an illness or emergency that causes you to miss an assignment. Students who miss an assignment / exam to participate in an official university function must make arrangements in advance. In rare cases, students may arrange with me to take an exam early; they are responsible for keeping the complete content of the exam confidential; any release of information will be consider academic misconduct.
I will not automatically drop students for poor performance or attendance. It is the student’s responsibility to do so prior to the deadline.
Exams & Assignments
Exams will be composed of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions, in approximately equal point counts. I will post a sample exam that I gave in Fall 2005. All exams will be open-book exams. These are not easier, just different. My philosophy is that we working scientists retain the core knowledge of our discipline in memory, but we look up many details; the essence of a productive work style is to know how and where to find key information efficiently. For you as a student taking an open-book exam, this means that you have to be very familiar with the book contents to find information in timely fashion. You need to read the book and come to the lectures to be able to do this; putting off mastery of the subject matter until just before the exam won’t work - you can’t page through the index fast enough, believe me. You will get much more from the course from keeping up with the topics by reading and attending class.
When you arrive at an exam, turn off your electronic devices and place them under your seat with your books and notes. Exams are intended to assess your individual performance. Keep your eyes on your own work; keep your answers covered as much as possible (see section III.B.1 of the student code of conduct). Students cheating on an exam will be given an F for the course and referred to the dean.
Exams will be returned with the written parts graded and the Scantron part reported as a total, without identifying which answers are right or wrong. This is a learning aid used in several universities. You can improve your score by identifying the correct answers. For each wrong answer that you correct, you will gain ˝ point. For each correct answer that you change to an incorrect one, you will lost ˝ point. You are free to work together with other students and anyone else on this correction exercise. You will see how it makes you rethink your answers and learn better. We’ll try a mock exercise in class before the first exam.
All grading will be explained on the WebCT site - the exam keys (after about a week, so that you can do the correction exercise to gain points), the scaling method (if applied), and a running total of your complete course progress.
When you are studying for the course outside of class, I encourage you to work with other students. . If the work of two or more students is not independent on assignments designated as iindividual work, all of the involved students will be guilty of cheating. This means that if you let another student use your paper on an independent writing assignment, you are cheating. If you ask another student to let you borrow their work while you write your assignment—you are asking them to be dishonest to themselves and to the other students in the class. Students cheating on an assignment will be given from a minimum penalty of an 0 on the assignment to a maximum penalty of an F for the course and referral to the dean.
If you turn in an assignment late, I will deduct 20% of the possible points on the assignment for each day beyond the due date (not including Saturday and Sunday).
Attendance Your grade will suffer if you don't come to class. Exams will include material presented and worked with in the text as well as in class; simply studying someone else's notes is not as effective as listening, taking notes, and then studying your own notes. Some assignments may be completed in class. Attendance is a very important predictor of success in this class. I assume you are in class every day that it meets and that you have heard the material presented in class. Students often think that skipping class and obtaining a copy of someone else’s notes is sufficient. In most cases this does not work since hearing the lecture and distilling it into your own personalized notes is an important step in processing the information. If you begin to miss class, you are on your way toward failing the course.
Conduct Academic misconduct reflects both personal and professional dishonesty. As part of our responsibility to help you learn to be a professional, and to maintain the reputation of our university so that your degrees from NMSU are valued by your future employees─we will not tolerate academic misconduct. If I conclude that you are guilty of academic misconduct I may assign you an F for the course and refer you to the Dean for consideration of additional penalties. Please see the Student Code of Conduct in the current Student Handbook http://www.nmsu.edu/%7Evpsa/handbook.html
The student code of conduct outlines various forms of academic misconduct in section III.B. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, possession and/or use of unauthorized materials during exams and quizzes; copying the work of another (e.g. another student, instructor or other reference source); using the words or ideas of another (e.g. another student, instructor or other reference source), especially without proper acknowledgement and citation; providing another student the opportunity to copy your work on exams, quizzes or individual assignments and looking at the work of another student during exams and quizzes. Any incidence of academic misconduct or cheating may result in a grade of “F” for the course and notification of the appropriate individuals at the department and college levels as well as the manager of student judicial affairs, who may apply additional sanctions (see section V.A. of the student code of conduct).
Using the tips below, you can avoid inadvertent plagiarism. (A revision of the plagiarism rules is in progress in the university.) Section III.B.2 of the Student Code of Conduct (reproduced in quotation marks below) considers plagiarism to include (but not necessarily be limited to) “submitting examinations, themes, reports, drawings, laboratory notes, undocumented quotations, computer-processed materials or other materials as one’s own work when such work has been prepared by another person or copied from another person”.
When you are answering questions on assignments you must use your own words. Copying directly from a reference (or another student or instructor) is plagiarism (and therefore a form of academic misconduct). Furthermore, it does not provide you with a chance to ensure your own understanding by expressing your answers in your own words. To avoid even inadvertent plagiarism, take notes in your own words as you read a reference, then put the reference away and compose your answers or assignment using only your notes in front of you. If you do this, it is impossible to copy from the reference, as you do not have it in front of you as you are writing. If something comes up that you want to check, just make a note of it, then check it later from the original reference (and take any notes in your own words, and use these notes when you go back to your assignment). Direct quotes should be minimal in length and must use quotation marks and appropriate citation. If you are unsure about anything in this regard, please come and ask.
Consideration for others: Come to class on time. If you must, on a rare occasion, leave early or arrive late, sit near the door. If you arrive late when students are engaged in group or laboratory activities, I may decide that your late arrival would distract other students and ask you to leave. If I ask you to leave because you arrived late to class, I will treat it as an unexcused absence.
Unless you have my permission, while in class do not turn on any disrupting device including, but not limited to, cellular phones, walkmans, and radios. Children may be brought into lecture only in exceptional situations, only if there is sufficient seating, and only if they are not disruptive to the class.
Disabilities & Accommodations If you have (or believe you have) a disability and would benefit from classroom accommodation(s), please contact the Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) Office located at Garcia Annex [Phone: 646-6840; TTY: 646-1918].
If you have a condition that may affect your ability to exit safely from the premises in an emergency or that may cause an emergency during class, you are encouraged to discuss any concerns with the Instructor.
Student Responsibilities
1. Register with SSD and obtain accommodation documents early in the semester;
2. Deliver the completed accommodation and testing form(s) to the instructor(s) within the first two weeks of beginning of classes (or within one week of the date services are to commence);
3. Retrieve the signed form(s) from faculty and return to SSD within five (5) days of receipt from faculty and at least one week before any scheduled exam; and,
4. Contact the SSD Office if the services/accommodations requested are not being provided, not meeting your needs, or if additional accommodations are needed. Do not wait until you receive a failing grade. Retroactive accommodations cannot be considered.
Faculty Responsibilities
1. Sign the ACCOMMODATION REQUEST FORM and TESTING ACCOMMODATION FORM (when presented), retain a copy, and return a copy to the student within five (5) working days of receipt;
2. Contact SSD immediately if there are any questions or disputes regarding accommodation(s), disruptive behavior, etc.; and,
3. Refer the student to SSD for any additional accommodations.
Accommodations: SSD Office, 646-6840 (Garcia Annex, Rm. 102) Michael Armendariz
Discrimination: EEO/ADA & Employee Relations, 646-3635 in the O’Loughlin House on Campus.
All medical information will be treated confidentially.
Getting Help:
My office hours: See page one of this syllabus.
Center For Learning Assistance - Hardman Hall Rm. 210, 646-3136, seminars and workshops on many topics including: stress management, time management, note taking, reading, study habits, etc.
The Writing Center - Rm. 102 in the English Building, 646-5297, available to all students, staff and faculty to work on learning to write more effectively.
Student Support Services - Will arrange tutoring and mentoring for students. They are located in Garcia Annex, Rm. 143, phone: 646-1336.
Class schedule. I will do my best to stick to this. Any necessary changes will be announced.
|
Lec. # |
Day |
Date |
Topic |
|
1 |
F |
19 Jan. |
Introduction
- Syllabus, Chap. 1, and a dialogue |
|
2 |
M |
22 Jan. |
|
|
3 |
W |
24 Jan. |
Ch. 2,
continued |
|
4 |
F |
26 Jan. |
|
|
5 |
M |
29 Jan. |
Ch. 3,
continued |
|
6 |
W |
31 Jan.. |
|
|
7 |
F |
2 Feb. |
Ch. 4,
continued + Ch. 5 - Water relations |
|
8 |
M |
5 Feb. |
Ch. 5,
continued |
|
9 |
W |
7 Feb. |
Overview
of chapters 1-5, and mock correction exercise |
|
10 |
F |
9 Feb. |
Exam 1 |
|
11 |
M |
12 Feb. |
|
|
12 |
W |
14 Feb. |
Ch. 6,
continued |
|
13 |
F |
16 Feb. |
|
|
14 |
M |
19 Feb. |
Ch. 7,
continued + Ch. 8 - Population genetics & selection |
|
15 |
W |
21 Feb. |
Ch. 8,
continued |
|
16 |
F |
23 Feb. |
|
|
17 |
M |
26 Feb. |
Ch. 9,
continued |
|
18 |
W |
28 Feb. |
|
|
19 |
F |
2 Mar. |
Ch. 10,
continued |
|
20 |
M |
5 Mar. |
Overview
of chapters 6-10 |
|
21 |
W |
7 Mar. |
Exam 2 |
|
22 |
F |
9 Mar. |
|
|
23 |
M |
12 Mar. |
Ch. 11,
continued |
|
24 |
W |
14 Mar. |
|
|
25 |
F |
16 Mar. |
Ch. 12,
continued + Ch. 13 - Interactions |
|
|
M |
19 Mar. |
No class - spring break |
|
|
W |
21 Mar. |
No class - spring break |
|
|
F |
23 Mar. |
No class - spring break |
|
26 |
M |
26 Mar. |
Ch. 13,
continued |
|
27 |
W |
28 Mar. |
|
|
28 |
F |
30 Mar. |
Ch. 14,
continued + Ch. 15 - Mutualism |
|
29 |
M |
2 Apr. |
Ch. 15,
continued |
|
30 |
W |
4 Apr. |
|
|
|
F |
6 Apr. |
No class - spring holiday |
|
31 |
M |
9 Apr. |
Ch. 16,
continued + Ch. 17 - Species interactions / communities |
|
32 |
W |
11 Apr. |
Ch. 17,
continued |
|
33 |
F |
13 Apr. |
Overview
of chapters 11-17 |
|
34 |
M |
16 Apr. |
Exam 3 |
|
35 |
W |
18 Apr. |
|
|
36 |
F |
20 Apr. |
Ch. 18,
continued + Ch. 19 - Nutrient cycling |
|
37 |
M |
23 Apr. |
Ch. 19,
continued |
|
38 |
W |
25 Apr. |
Ch. 19,
continued + Ch. 20 - Succession and stability |
|
39 |
F |
27 Apr. |
Ch. 20,
continued |
|
40 |
M |
30 Apr. |
|
|
41 |
W |
2-May |
|
|
42 |
F |
4 May |
Ch. 23,
continued + overview of chapters 18-20, 22, 23 |
|
|
F |
7 May |
Final
exam; 1:00-3:00 PM |