Student Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to describe plant form and function emphasizing evolutionary trends throughout the plant kingdom (including structure, function, growth, transport, nutrition, control systems, reproduction and development.)
• Students will be able to describe the life cycles of the important phyla in detail emphasizing evolutionary trends through geological time.
• Students will be able to define the concept of alteration of generation, and analyze the modifications that have occurred in different organismal groups.
• Students will be able to compare and contrast the different taxonomic groups (bacteria, protists, plants, animals and fungi) and discuss evolutionary changes that led to their adaptive radiation throughout geological time.
• Students will be able to compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms and describe how they are arranged in a classification hierarchy.
• Students will be able to evaluate the impact of science on their daily lives (area B GEO being used as course level SLO)
• Students will be able to construct cladogram. Students will be able to correctly analyze and construct a cladogram using shared and derived characteristics placing species and their characteristics in the proper positions.
• Students will be able to classify plants to Family. Students will be able to correctly analyze plant characteristics and be able to place unfamiliar plants into their correct plant families.
• Students will be able to complete an analysis of plant and animal interactions in relationship to their biomes.
• Students will be able to describe animal form and function emphasizing evolutionary trends throughout the animal kingdom (including structure, function, nutrition, circulation, gas exchange, immune response, internal controls, chemical signals, reproduction, development, behavior, nervous and sensory systems).
• Students will be able to analyze the current taxonomic classification schemes and discuss how taxonomy is a work in progress.
• Students will be able to discuss evolutionary changes throughout the geological time scale including topics on systematics, taxonomy, and biological diversity.