Course Objectives (COs) define the learning objectives that the student will be required to demonstrate by course completion.
1 Given a causal observation and a proposed hypothesis, suggest another possible interpretation and a series of experiments to test these hypotheses. Example: The more it rains, the larger the cattle grow. Therefore, cattle absorb rainwater like a sponge to grow larger.
2 Given the matter surrounding you right now in your room, propose a classification scheme and analyze its structure and physical and chemical properties.
3 Given an unbalanced chemical reaction such as combination, decomposition, replacement, or oxidation-reduction, and the moles of the reactants, calculate the moles of each product.
4 Given separate known solutions of acid and base, including molarity and volumes, calculate the molarity of the products in the combined solution.
5 Given a list of organic compounds and biological macromolecules such as lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, and DNA/RNA, analyze their structures and differentiate between their major functional components.
6 Given a bacterial cell, a plant cell, and an animal cell, classify each as prokaryotic or eukaryotic, compare and contrast their structure, and evaluate how structure relates to function.
7 Given a plant and a bacterial culture, analyze how each takes up nutrients from the environment, produces energy, and uses the resulting stored energy to synthesize cellular structures.
8 Given photographs of HIV, a bacterium, and a fruit fly, analyze the pathways of genetic information within each and explain how this information can be used.
9 Given a person with a hereditary trait or condition (such as curly hair, color blindness, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, etc.), write a summary that explains the genetics of inheritance.
10 Given a photograph of a biome such as a tropical rainforest, analyze the factors that lead to the diversity of life found there.
11 Given an ecological scenario illustrating the interdependence of living things, such as grasslands or temperate deciduous forests (TDF), select one ecosystem and analyze the way energy is transferred and the material cycles that sustain the community or organisms (biomass pyramid).