Student Learning Outcomes 1: Describe and apply the scientific method.
Components:
a. Define what it means to be scientific and explain why science is restricted to using the scientific method.
b. Apply the scientific method to a specific situation.
c. Accurately describe the differences between a hypothesis and a scientific theory.
d. Distinguish between science and pseudoscience and provide a comparative example.
e. Design a simple experiment that properly uses the scientific method.
f. Collect data from an experiment and produce a graph that can be used to interpolate and extrapolate information.
g. Discern between reputable and non-reputable sources of scientific information
2: Apply basic scientific terminology to the human body
Components:
a. Explain the different levels of organization and provide examples of each level
b. Define basic medical terms used by physicians to describe aspects of human health
c. Apply basic medical terms to the understanding of one’s own body
3: Explain the roles of macromolecules in the human body
Components:
a. List and define the four biological macromolecules and provide at least one example for each.
b. Explain how nutrient labels of commercial foods relate to the macromolecules
c. Describe how nutrients are used in the body to provide energy
4: Explain the basic functions of at least 5 organ systems and how they interact with each other
Components:
a. Describe the organs of systems so they may understand the structural and organizational relationships in the way the systems work
b. Explain at least one way that the systems described can maintain homeostasis in a healthy person
5: Explain how human health and activity influence the environment, economy, society, and history.
Components:
a. Describe how aspects of human physiology can affect the health and safety of local environments.
b. Explain how the knowledge of human health and physiology has brought about changes in the ways we engage in health practices and develop therapies for disease.
c. Provide examples of how human health has affected the history of a country and how it has resulted in the ways various countries derived their system of governance over time.
Course Description Basic scientific principles are applied to understanding the human body and explored in a biology laboratory setting. Students will learn about how the Scientific Method is developing our understanding of major organ systems and how those systems function together. The course will also explore how our concepts of human physiology have changed through years of accumulation of scientific knowledge, how human physiology and evolution has been influenced by environmental changes, and how we influence our environment to maintain homeostasis. Course work will include group activities in the laboratory to see how organ systems work together and the development of a small group project that incorporates the information learned about human biology and how it relates to other aspects of life outside the realm of sciences.