Course Objectives
This lecture course is offered to undergraduate students interested in learning more about ecosystem ecology and how stable isotopes in natural abundance levels are used as integrators, tracers, and recorders in environmental and ecological studies. The focus of the couse will span from molecules to ecosystems and will include animal, plant, and microbe studies. These objectives will be accomplished through lectures, discussions, readings, slide presentations, and collaborative assignments.
Your assignments require that you are familiar with computer programs for data analysis, word processing, and graphic preparation. Our objective here is to ensure that you are very familiar with how to package, present, store, and transfer information in this electronic age.
Lectures
Tuesday and Thursday, 10:45 a.m. to 12:05 p.m., 320 JTB
Discussion
TBA
Textbook
There is no textbook for this course, only course readings available on WebCT.
Home Page
The url for this course is http://ehleringer.net/bio5470.html and includes information about the course, including past exams for your review.
WebCT
This course includes readings, data, and assignment information found on WebCT. You will also be able to track your individual grades, contact the professor and other students in the course via WebCT.
ADA Information
The University seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services, and activities for people with disabilities. If you will need accommodation in this class, reasonable prior notice needs to be given to the instructor and to the Center for Disability Services, 162 Olpin Union Building, 581-5020 (V/TDD) to make arrangements for these accommodations. All written information in this course can be made available in alternative format with prior notification.
Examinations and Grading
Your final grade will be based on a cumulative 375-point total. Grading will be approximately:
90-100% = A, 338+
80-89% = B, 300-337
70-79% = C, 262-299
60-69% = D, 225-261
<60% = E, 224 or less
300 of those points will come from the following four exams or projects; the lowest of your scores will be dropped for grade calculations:
100 points = Take-home data evaluations and analyses (due September 30)
100 points = Examination One (October 9)
100 point = Examination Two (November 25)
100 point = Term Paper document (December 12)
The remaining 75 points are derived from:
25 points = Outline for your term paper (due by November 7) REQUIRED
50 points = Oral presentation of term paper topic (submission by December 9) (presentations December 9 and 11)
Course Drop Policy
The withdrawal policy is the same as the University policy described in the Class Schedule.
Data Analysis Project
There will be one group project during the semester. For this project, you can work in self-organized groups to analyze the data or other pieces of information. Each group can analyze the data together and produce joint graphs and/or tables as a part of their analyses. However, when it comes to the actual writing of these reports, individual effort is required. Details will become clearer when the assignments are given (or see WebCT).
Examinations
Tests will primarily focus on problem solviing and evaluation of experimental data. They will be based primarily on the lectures, but you must be familiar with the assigned reading. Previous examinations will be available at the course home page. There wil be no regularly scheduled final examination.
Optional Discussion Sessions
There will be an optional one-hour discussion each week to answer questions from the lectures, to get additional training on computer programs, and to cover other topics of interest. Date and time to be determined.
All Papers and Assignments are Submitted Electronically
All project papers must be submitted electronically via WebCT as PDF files, in readable English, free of grammatical and typographical errors, and with figures or tables inserted into the appropriate parts of the text. All graphs must be computer generated (and inserted into the text as JPGs) so that we know you have acquired computer-based, data-analysis skills. There are plenty of computers available on campus and within the department to assist you. Spell checking and grammar programs, spreadsheet programs, drawing programs, statistical programs, and data-analysis programs are also available on most of these computers.
For those unfamiliar with producing PDF files, we will go over this process in an optional discussion session. If there are excessive grammatical and/or spelling errors n your paper, we will discuss this with you individually, we will offer help in improving the quality of the presentation, and we will expect that the paper will be corrected and improved by you before a final grade is received. When your graded paper is returned to you, you will have the option of incorporating the comments and resubmitting the revised paper for a second round of grading where your total score can reach a maximum of the original score plus one-half the difference between your original score and 100.
Although this is not a "writing intensive" class, we do expect that papers will be of reasonable quality, both in terms of data analysis and presentation. After all, once employed after finishing school, you certainly would not think of turning in shoddy work to your employer.