BIOLOGY 103
BIOLOGY: BASIC CONCEPTS
Fall, 2003

• Course Prospectus

• Course Schedule

• Course Announcements - click announcements for course enrollment info

• Lecture/discussion notes (click here for most recent)

• Course Forum Area and Forum Archive

• Web paper notes
  • Previous web papers
  • Instructions for submission

• Web Papers I

• Web Papers II

• Lab Report notes
  • Weekly lab report forum

• WWW resources on Serendip

• Internet Resources for Biology, from the Bryn Mawr Library

• Interactive Biology, from Serendip

• Interesting books

• Course Announcements:

  Welcome to Biology 103. And to thinking about science, and about life, and to trying to make sense of their relation to one another, and to ...

  Third web paper due on line and in box outside Room 106 by 5 pm Friday, December 20 (email me if you haven't gotten comments on second web paper).

  Third lab report due in same box by same time (you may do either a revision of one of your earlier reports or a new report on one of the recent labs. Links to lab notes (and to evolution simulations if you want to play more with those) are provided on the course schedule).

  Please make one last visit to forum area.

Welcome to the home page for a one-semester introductory biology course at Bryn Mawr College, fall semester, 2003. Students (and visitors) should be aware that this is a "non-traditional" science course in several respects (see A Vision of Science (and Science Education) in the 21st Century for further background):

• It presumes that biology, like all science, is an ongoing process of trying to make sense of the world and one's relation to it by a recursive and unending process of making observations, summarizing the observations, and using the summaries to motivate new observations.

• It presumes that biology is of interest and is accessible to everyone, and is an essential tool in the repertoire of anyone who is themself trying to make sense of who they are and how they relate to the world around them.

• It presumes that biology, like all science, is best assimilated by a process in which students themselves work through in their own minds and in relation to their own experiences and understandings relevant observations and the summaries of those observations suggested by others. Education, like science, should be an ongoing process of making observations, summarizing the observations, and using the summaries to motivate new observations.

• It presumes that biology, like all science, is a social process, one in which the observations and tentative summaries are shared among individuals, so that each can benefit from the ongoing inquiries of others. For this reason, students (like faculty) will be expected to actively engage in all aspects of the course, including making thoughts in progress available not only to other students in the course but to the world at large by way of an on-line forum and web papers.