| Description change | Prerequisite change | Undergraduate |
| From: | ||
|---|---|---|
| Course Prefix & Number | Descriptive Title | Credits/Hours |
| BI 357 W | General Ecology | 4 - 0 |
| To: | ||
| Course Prefix & Number | Descriptive Title | Credits/Hours |
| BI 357 W | General Ecology | 4 - 0 |
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Abbreviation for Class Schedule(20 spaces) General Ecology |
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Current Course Description: The biology of ecosystems including abiotic factors, energy transformations, population dynamics and interspecific interactions. Course emphasizes basic ecological principles not current problems. Laboratories will focus on a survey of major ecosystems and will include field trips to selected sites. Three lectures and one three-hour laboratory. Prerequisite: BI 213 or consent of the instructor offered fall term. |
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New Course Description: Focuses on the patterns of distribution and abundance of organisms in space and through time. Explores the underlying causes, both natural and anthropogenic, of these patterns at the population, community and ecosystem levels for a variety of organisms and ecosystems. In the lab, students will engage in nearly all phases of ecological research. Three hours of lectures and one three-hour laboratory. Prerequisites: BI 211, BI212, BI213, WR 135 and MTH 111. Offered fall term. |
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Justification for changing the course (e.g. alignment with other institutions, program revision, etc.): Facing serious annual enrollment challenges, the Biology Department reassessed its third year core (which includes General Microbiology and General Ecology or Plant Ecology) with an emphasis on ensuring students are more adequately prepared for the rigors of these advanced courses. This is particularly important for understanding ecology, which requires strong experience in animal and plant diversity and function (emphasized in Biology 212 and 213), and math especially algebra and basic statistics applications. Given that we just submitted a course change proposal to develop a new BI 211 trailer course with more flexible prerequisites for BI213, we now need to explicitly state that all students entering General Ecology need to have taken the whole 200-level sequence (Biology 211-2-3). Math 111 is a new prerequisite and reflects the level of mathematics expected and used in this course. Although the catalog generally states that writing-intensive courses require WR135 and this course is always writing-intensive, we wanted this more explicitly stated in the course description. The new course description is reflective of changes made to the course in the past several years. This course description change involves no new FTE or space requests. |
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Students/Program affected: Biology Majors all emphases (some emphases can choose between General or Plant Ecology) Biology Teacher Education degree Environmental Studies minor (one of two elective options) Integrated Science Teacher Major (one of three elective options) NOTE: the Biology minor does NOT require ecology, but students can select it as an option. |
| Step | Approver | Decision | Timestamp |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - Department | Sarah Boomer | Approved | October 17 2010 |
| 2 - Division | Steve Taylor | Approved | October 20 2010 |
| 3 - Division Curriculum | Laurie Burton | Approved | November 04 2010 |
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Comments: Math 111 serves as sufficient background to address statistics computations in course. (NSM Division CC) |
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| 5 - Curriculum Committee | Robert Monge | Approved | December 08 2010 |
| 6 - Faculty Senate | Gavin Keulks | Approved | February 08 2011 |
| 7 - Dean | Stephen Scheck | Approved | February 13 2011 |
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Comments: Editing suggestion: Rank course prereq placement, alphabetically
As proposed: Prerequisites: BI 211, BI212, BI213, WR 135 and MTH 111.
Suggest listing WR 135 last, i.e., BI 211, BI 212, BI 213, MTH 111 and WR 135 |
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| 8 - Provost | Kent Neely | Approved | February 14 2011 |