The first part of the course will focus on the basic steps, the molecules, the chemical reactions, and the pathways that make up human energy metabolism. This should give students the background for understanding what happens to food on the molecular level. This will be followed by a consideration of how the demand for energy is communicated between cells. These concepts will be applied to the examination of the regulation of human metabolism by insulin and other hormones as well as by the nervous system. In the second part, the focus will shift to genetics, evolution, and genetic engineering. The course will cover how the genetic information is passed on from one generation to the next and how the genetic information controls the activities of each cell in an organism. The following section will be on evolution and the relationship between evolution and genetics. Then we will examine how genetic engineering is done as well as some of its applications and the impact the information from the human genome project is having. The course is presented with the assumption of no prior college-level background in science. The concepts will be presented at the molecular level. Each section will include the introductory material to familiarize you with the chemical, biological, and physical background concepts that the section is based on. This course will contain a significant cooperative/collaborative learning component. In general, Mondays and Fridays will be lecture classes and Wednesdays will be cooperative/collaborative days. The cooperative/collaborative sessions will be based on working in groups. Each group, with each group consisting of three or four students, will, as a group, prepare written answers to a few questions that will be equivalent, in content and difficulty, to those in the then-current homework assignments. One of the primary aims of cooperative/collaborative learning is for the students to be able to be able to talk about the material and to be able to explain the material to their cohorts. |