By Stephen H. Jenkins
The yank organization for the development of Science's record on Vision and alter in Undergraduate Biology Education means that teachers "can now not count completely on attempting to hide a syllabus choked with themes" yet really may still "introduce fewer options yet current them in better depth." They additional recommend that the rules embodied in a collection of center strategies and knowledge may be the root for all undergraduate biology classes, together with these designed for nonmajors.
The subject of Tools for severe considering in Biology often is the first and such a lot primary of those potential: the facility to use the method of technology. Biology classes and curricula needs to interact scholars in how clinical inquiry is performed, together with comparing and analyzing clinical factors of the flora and fauna. The ebook makes use of varied examples to demonstrate how experiments paintings, how hypotheses should be validated through systematic and comparative observations whilst experiments are not attainable, how versions are important in technological know-how, and the way sound judgements should be according to the burden of facts even if uncertainty is still. those are basic concerns within the means of technology which are very important for everybody to appreciate, whether or not they pursue careers in technology or now not. the place different introductory biology textbooks are geared up medical thoughts, Tools for serious pondering in Biology will in its place express how equipment can be utilized to check hypotheses in fields as diverse as ecology and drugs, utilizing modern case stories. The ebook will offer scholars with a deeper figuring out of the strengths and weaknesses of such equipment for answering new questions, and may thereby switch the best way they consider the basics of biology.
Read or Download Tools for Critical Thinking in Biology PDF
Similar biology & life sciences books
PROFESSOR ROSE'S recognized paintings IS AN quintessential spouse FOR someone drawn to THIS box.
Biologie für Einsteiger: Prinzipien des Lebens verstehen
Leben ist ein äußerst komplexes Phänomen und läuft doch vom winzigen Bakterium bis zum studierenden Menschen stets nach den gleichen Prinzipien ab. Die Einführung in die Biologie erschließt Kapitel für Kapitel diese grundlegenden Mechanismen und Strukturen. Mit ihrem modernen didaktischen Konzept legt die Einführung in die Biologie dabei auf völlig neue Weise den Schwerpunkt auf die Vermittlung eines wirklichen Verständnisses für die Abläufe in Zellen und Organismen.
- Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms
- The growth of biological thought
- Time Lags in Biological Models
Additional resources for Tools for Critical Thinking in Biology
Sample text
The process might be something like prehistoric South Pacific islanders gradually extending their range by rowing across the ocean to more and more distant islands, except that the human example involved cultural change while the monarch example involved genetic change. The evidence bearing on this argument about the origin of migration in monarch butterflies differs from the evidence that they use the sun as a compass to navigate to the wintering area. Most of the latter evidence came from experiments, but it’s difficult to imagine experiments that could support the hypothesis that migration originated deep in evolutionary time by tropical butterflies gradually flying farther and farther north to breed.
The new plant growth in the foreground of the 2010 picture is willow shrubs. indd 15 2/9/2015 6:11:38 PM (b) (a) (b) (c) (d) P LAT E 16 North American beaver, by Ross Haley (a); diagram of a beaver lodge with a food cache of a large pile of sticks anchored in mud at the bottom of the pond nearby (b); Indian ricegrass, by Matt Lavin (c); Merriam’s kangaroo rat, the primary rodent that harvested and stored seeds of Indian ricegrass at our study site, by Ned Dochtermann (d). 0 1850 1900 1950 Year 2000 P LAT E 17 Average annual temperature of Earth’s surface from 1860 to 2000 (red lines) compared to projections of three sets of global climate models: models with only natural forcings such as changes in solar radiation and volcanic activity (a), models with only anthropogenic forcings such as release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (b), and models with both natural and anthropogenic forcings (c).
I was able to outline the methods used to discover the winter home of monarch butterflies in a few paragraphs, but it would take many pages to describe the scanning electron microscopy and advanced statistical methods used to learn what a small dinosaur looked like. However, both of these examples illustrate three common features of all scientific research, whether the goal is to discover basic facts or to understand causation. In all cases, the fundamental motivation of a scientist is curiosity.