Spring 2001: BIOL 122: Living Systems

overview – instructors – course information – downloads – updates

overview location 10 Leidy Laboratories time MWF 11 syllabus BIOL 122 Syllabus + Schedule This is the second semester of a full-year introductory biology lecture and laboratory course sequence. BIOL 122 picks up where BIOL 121 left off, considering organismal diversity, how cells differentiate and manifest themselves as tissues, how tissues are integrated into organisms, and the nature and consequences of organismal interactions with abiotic and biotic environmental factors. As with BIOL 121, this course emphasizes mechanistic and experimental approaches to the understanding of modern biology. Our goal is to provide a general understanding of how living systems work and an introduction to biological research methods. In other words, we will address not just the "what", but also the "how" and (where possible) the "why". The regular lectures will be supplemented by several guest research talks on currently active areas of biological research.

	professors Paul Sniegowski 324 Leidy Laboratories email: paulsnie@sas.upenn.edu +1 215 573.4085 Greg Guild 204 Kaplan Wing email: gguild@sas.upenn.edu +1 215 898.3433 Linda Robinson 219 Leidy Laboratories email: linda3@sas.upenn.edu +1 215 573.2656 office hours: Fri. 2-3 PM or by appt. Thianda Manzara 219 Leidy Laboratories email: manzara@sas.upenn.edu +1 215 573.2657 office hours: TBA

course information textbook Reading assignments indicate chapters (or page numbers) to be read before each lecture. Reading assignments may differ and changes will be announced in class. Biology, 5th Edition, Campbell, Reece and Mitchell. Lab manuals may be purchased at the University Copy Center (located at 36th and Chestnut on the first floor of the Sheraton). A dissection kit will also be required. Instructions for each laboratory must be read before coming to lab. Students must successfully complete the laboratory in order to receive credit for BIOL 102. weekly discussion sessions (optional) Optional discussion sections will be held every Monday (5-6 PM in GL101), and at two other times to be announced during the first week of class. Monday discussions will be led by faculty responsible for the previous week's lectures, and the other two discussions will be led by an advanced Biology student who has been attending lectures on a regular basis. These discussions will provide an opportunity to ask questions and listen to other students' questions and ideas. Additional review sessions will be arranged prior to examinations. Office hours can also be arranged by appointment with your TA or the course instructors. grading and exams The course will be graded on a 450 point scale. Three 100-point mid-term examinations will be given, each covering one-third of the course. Two of these will be administered during regular class periods, and the third will be given during the first hour of the final exam period. The lowest of your three mid-term grades will be dropped in computing your course grade. No make-up exams will be offered for the hour exams; if you miss one exam, that exam will be the one that is automatically dropped. The second hour of the final exam period will be a comprehensive exam that all students must take. This comprehensive exam will count for 100 points of your course grade. The laboratory will count for 150 points of your grade. Answer keys will be posted immediately following exams. Challenges to the key must be received before the end of the exam day. Requests for exam regrades will only be considered for two weeks after the exam is returned to you, and all answers will be subject to reconsideration at that time. lecture schedule Please refer to the BIOL 122 PDF talk schedule for more information on this course. academic integrity All relevant University policies regarding Academic Integrity must be followed. This includes no cheating, no plagiarism and reporting any knowledge thereof. Please consult the Student Handbook or the appropriate web-page: http://www.college.upenn.edu/responsibilities/integrity.html Note: The code of Academic Integrity will be strictly enforced. Any violation will result in failure in the course and potentially other punitive action.

	downloads  schedules BIOL 122 Syllabus + Schedule  assignments + handouts BIOL 122 Laboratory Schedule BIOL 122 Tree of Life Assignment "Improving HIV Therapy" by J.G. Bartlett and R.D. Moore, Sci. Am., July 1998:  exams BIOL 122, Spring 2000, Exam I BIOL 122, Spring 2000, Exam II BIOL 122, Spring 2000, Exam III BIOL 122, Spring 2000, Final Exam

course updates 01/22/2001 Course information Welcome to BIOL122. From time to time we will contact you about course matters via email and website posting. Just to repeat some announcements from today's lecture: We've had a change in our TA staff. Kendra Pyle, who is listed on the syllabus, is being replaced by Kieran Dilks (kdilks@sas.upenn.edu). The lab manual is available from University Copy Center, 36th and Chestnut. This is the same building as the U. City Sheraton. The manuals for BIOL102 and BIOL122 are identical this year, so don't be confused if it only says 102 on the cover. The lab schedule given in the syllabus does not include complete titles or chapter numbers of the labs. Your TAs will provide that information at the first lab. For the first week of lab we will be doing Mutation and Natural Selection (Ch. 2) and the California Bucket (Ch. 13). And one more thing: Watch for a web-based assignment on the Tree of Life at the end of this week. The assignment will be posted to the course website. The Tree of Life web assignment is now available on the BIOL122 website. This is a reading-based assignment; there is nothing to turn in for a grade. Reasonable questions based on this assignment may appear on Midterm 1 and the Final Exam. 01/26/2001 Next week's lab is going to be *very busy*. You will be finishing up the Mutation and Adaptation experiment (Ch. 2 in the manual) and making observations of fertilization and development in sea urchins and development in frog and chick (Ch. 10 in the manual). Be sure to study the lab manual *before* coming to lab. In addition, you should read and study Chapter 47 (Animal Development) in Campbell before next week's lab. 01/29/2001 For those of you who arrived late or were not in lecture today, a few pieces of information: 1. Student-led discussion times with David Lazar are now set. They are: Tues. 7-8 PM Thurs. 5-6 PM Both are in Goddard 102. 2. As Midterm 1 approaches I will provide a guide to what you should emphasize in your study of the protist, plant, animal and fungal diversity chapters in the text. We were unable to cover the fungi in lecture today, so please read and study Chapter 31 in Campbell et al. on your own. As a guide to your study, keep the following important themes in mind: fungi are most closely related to animals most fungi are heterotrophic decomposers the fungal mycelium provides a high surface area/volume ratio fungi reproduce by spore production, and the life cycles feature karyogamy and plasmogamy mycorrhizal associations are of enormous ecological importance (we will hear more about them in a research talk later in the semester) Please be familiar with examples from the four phyla of fungi discussed in the text 3. I will not be lecturing to the class again until April 16th. In the interim, however, I will attend all lectures and keep my office hour on Wednesdays from 12-1 should you need to see me. Please contact me first by email with general questions about course administration and about my lectures; contact the other lecturers only about questions concerning their lectures and related material. Also, the following message went out as email last week: If you are interested in reading more about the evolution of animal body plans, you might want to check the following link: http://www.amsci.org/amsci/articles/97articles/Erwin.html This takes you to an article by Erwin et al. on the evolution of animal body plans that appeared in the March/April 1997 issue of American Scientist. The article relates the Cambrian explosion to findings from molecular developmental genetics. Note that this is *extra* reading. It is not required, and questions from the article will not appear on the exams unless the material was also covered in lecture. 02/02/2001 Next week's labs will cover only part of Chapter 3 in the manual: pages 3-1 to 3-16. We will finish Chapter 3 the following week. 02/05/2001 Stem cell biology readings: Stem cells: A primer http://www.nih.gov/news/stemcell/primer.htm Glenn McGee's piece to MSNBC: A revolutionary war over stem cells http://www.msnbc.com/news/520126.asp 02/09/2001 Midterm I review and study advice It's time to begin thinking about the first midterm, which will happen next Friday, February 16th, during class time. The midterm will cover all of the reading and lecture material up to and including Wednesday, February 14th. As always, if you want to be guaranteed a perfect score on the exam, then you need to know everything in the reading and everything that was presented in lectures. We will hold a review session for this midterm from 5-7 PM in LL10 (our usual classroom) on Wednesday, Feb 14th. (Sorry: I know that's Valentine's Day, but it's the best that I could do. Bring your sweetie if you like.) In addition, we will hold the usual faculty-led and student-led discussion sections during the week. The diversity chapters cover a *lot* of detail, so consider the following helpful suggestions. The first two are the most important. Make sure that you understand the logic involved in classifying organisms based on their shared, derived characters. Review Ch. 25 if necessary. Next, master the basic phylogenetic framework within each domain and kingdom, bearing in mind the synapomorphies used in classifying the various groupings of organisms. For prokaryotes, learn the major groupings presented in Chapter 27. For protists, learn the characteristics of the five candidate Kingdoms covered in Chapter 28. (Recall that we discussed Archaezoa and Alveolata in class.) For animals, learn the characteristics of the Phyla and Classes that are covered in Chapters 33 and 34. For plants, learn the Divisions of vascular and nonvascular plants as covered in Chapters 29 and 30. For fungi, learn the characteristics of the four Divisions as presented in Chapter 31. Here is some additional information on other areas: Do not try to memorize Tables 41.1 and 41.2 in Chapter 41 (vitamin and mineral requirements of humans). Be sure to read the material on stem cells that was posted to the course website on 2/5/01. 03/19/2001 Midterm II review session Our review session for BIO122 Midterm II will be held on Wednesday, 21 March in LL10 from 5 to 7 PM. This exam will include all material covered since the last exam, up to and including the March 21 guest lecture. 04/26/2001 Course information A few reminders as we finish with lectures this week. We will not have a Monday afternoon faculty discussion next week. We'll see you at the review session, which will be 4-5 on Wednesday in LL10. Drs. Guild and Robinson will be available 4-5, and Drs. Wagner and Sniegowski will be available 5-6. Our exam (Midterm 3 and the Final) will be Thursday morning May 3rd 8:30-10:30 in LL10. Please bring a calculator. Rules covering final exams at http://www.upenn.edu/registrar/roster/rules.html No student may be required to take *more than two* final examinations on any calendar day during the period in which final examinations are scheduled. If more than two are scheduled, the student may postpone the *middle* exam. Examinations that are postponed because of conflicts with other examinations, or because more than two examinations are scheduled in the same day, may be taken at another time during the final examinations period if the faculty member and student can agree on that time. Otherwise, they must be taken during the official period for postponed examinations: the first week of the spring and fall semesters. Remember that PDF files of last year's exams are available on this site. These can give you a feeling for what to expect on the Final and Midterm 3.

Courses
Department of Biology
School of Arts and Sciences
University of Pennsylvania

last updated September 28, 2001