使命及目标

任务

The mission of the 生物学 Program is to provide a high-quality education to our students and to prepare our students to excel in a variety of careers.  我们致力于 graduating students with strong skills in critical thinking, the scientific method and application of fundamental biological concepts, and who have gained practical skills through laboratory activities, internships, independent re搜索 and other 高影响力的经历.

目标

Upon completion of the 生物学 Program, graduates will be able to:

• Understand fundamental concepts in the discipline.
• Write a lab report to communicate the findings of a scientific experiment.
• Design an experiment to test a hypothesis.
• Find and analyze primary literature in the field.
• Demonstrate appropriate technical skills in the laboratory.
• Analyze data with appropriate statistical analysis.

信息素养

A fundamental component of an undergraduate education is information literacy.  In general, a student with a Bachelor’s degree should be able to:

• Effectively access necessary information though basic reading and re搜索 strategies, with emphasis on scholarly literature.
• Select potential resources in a variety of formats (book, journal, website, etc.), understand the differences between scholarly (peer-reviewed) and popular sources, and evaluate sources for significance and reliability.
• Interpret information from sources and effectively communicate information in new 工作.
• Ethically use information in the creation of new 工作, e.g.，适当地引用资料来源 避免抄袭.

The 生物学 program stresses information literacy throughout the curriculum.  信息 literacy skills are practiced at every level, and activities are designed to allow sequential development of these skills.  The ability to read scientific literature and incorporate the information into written 工作 (e.g. 实验室报告)是很重要的 科学技能.  Focus is also placed on application of information found in academic literature to clinical practice, where applicable, particularly for students interested in medical and health-related fields. 

信息 literacy begins with BIOL 101 Seminar for Entering Majors and BIOL 150 Introduction to 生物学, which together require students to read and analyze scientific literature, and incorporate information from scientific literature into two lab 报告. Next, biology students take BIOL 160 Introduction to 生物学 II: Organisms and BIOL 240年基因.  Lab 报告 in these courses require students to build upon previous skills in writing, data analysis and information literacy.

Practice of information literacy continues in upper-level courses. 例如，每一个 生物学 major is required to take 生物学 Seminar (BIOL 330), in which students read scientific literature, present studies described in journal articles, and then discuss 这种材料. Most biology courses at the 300- and 400-level are focused on a specific topic, and those with a laboratory component typically require lab 报告.  由 300-level students have had experience in information literacy and in writing lab 报告.  Therefore, at this level students are expected to competently write a lab report with substantial use of scientific literature, including a literature review in the introduction and comparison of results to published findings and greater context 在讨论中.