BIOL 3000: Frontiers in Biology

Instructor: Ms. Tommi Lou Carosella                                    Office: Naraghi Hall 257, phone 667-3596

e-mail: tcarosella@csustan.edu           Office hours: MW 11:15-12:00, F9:05-10:00  or by appointment

There is no textbook for this course. Please log on to the CSUS BlackBoard website frequently to keep up with assignments and readings.

Grading: 600 points possible. Letter grades (+/-) and credit/no credit available.

< 60 % = F, 60-62=D-, 62.5-67=D, 67.5-69.5=D+, 70-72=C-, 72.5-77=c, 77.5-79.5=C+, 80-82=B-,

82.5-87=B, 87.5-89.5=B+, 90-92=A-, 92.5-97=A, 97.5-100%=A+.

Two Papers worth 100 points each, Exam I worth 200 points, Exam II worth 150 points, and Participation/Attendance worth 50 points. I do expect you to be in class or watching in real time, so we can have discussions and “in class” activities.

This is a General Education class aimed at non-biology juniors and seniors.  GE classes have the following goals:

1. Subject Knowledge.  To provide an educational experience that will enhance students’ understanding of the disciplines’ basic principles, methodologies, and perspectives.
2. Communication.  To provide an educational experience that will enhance the ability to communicate.
3. Inquiry and Critical Thinking.  To provide an educational experience that will enhance critical thinking skills and will contribute to continuous inquiry and life-long learning.
4. Information Retrieval and Evaluation.  To provide an educational experience that will enhance the ability to find, understand, examine critically, and use information from various sources.
5. Interdisciplinary Relationships.  To provide an educational experience that will enhance students’ understanding of a discipline’s interrelationships with other disciplines.
6. Global or Multicultural Perspectives.  To provide an educational experience that will enhance the ability to look at issues from multiple perspectives and/or that will describe the discipline’s impact on or connection to global issues, AND/OR
7. Social Responsibility.  To provide an educational experience that will help students understand the complexity of ethical judgment and social responsibility and/or that will describe the discipline’s impact on or connection to social and ethical issues.

Course contract:

1. Come to class prepared to think and participate. I spend a lot of time thinking and preparing for each class session, I expect the same from you.

2. You will earn your grade. I do not “give” you a grade. What you get out of a course is usually directly proportional to what you put into it.

3. I will respect you as a person and as a learner. Please do not be afraid to ask questions. If you already knew the material, you wouldn’t be in the class! Usually, if one person is confused, it means other students are too. If I feel one person or topic is taking up too much class time, please do not be offended if I defer the discussion to a later time, or ask you to communicate with me privately. Your questions and feedback are important to me. In addition, some of you have life experience that can enrich the class. We can learn from each other.

4. I expect you to respect me and the other students in the course. You will be asked to participate in some group discussions and exercises. Disagreements are part of the learning process. It is important that each person be allowed to speak, and that you can “agree to disagree”.  One of the big advantages of a college education is exposure to different people and different points of view. Try to learn from your differences.

5. Turn your assignments in on time. If you are ill, or your car breaks down, or whatever, and you e-mail your assignment to me, I will accept it up to two days late (by Friday of that week) but you will lose points.

6. I will check for plagiarism. Trust me, you cannot fool me. If you plagiarize, you will either lose points, or get an F, depending on how blatant and pervasive it is. I don’t tolerate cheating. It is not “harmless”. It indicates a lack of self-discipline and responsibility, and has no place in civilized society. Trust is fundamental to all our social interactions. If you want respect, you have to be trustworthy.

Guidelines for your papers.  Each must be 3 solid pages of content.  (You can put your name and the course title on the first page- don’t waste paper on a cover sheet). Each must have at least 3 references; one may be a news report or web page, the other two must be peer reviewed articles or a scholarly book. References will be printed on a separate page. You must cite your sources in the body of your work.  Examples would be as follows:

            A study on Canadian teenagers (Smith, 2003) showed …

            Smith (2003) studied Canadian teenagers and found …

            Smith’s 2003 study on Canadian teenagers using drugs …

Paper I: Examining Scientific Controversy

Choose from the list of topics on BlackBoard. In your introduction, describe your topic and explain why it is important. This may include the social/economic/ethical aspects of the problem. Follow with a brief summary of the past knowledge or conventional wisdom. What aspects are being challenged by the new science?

Describe the new science/research that is being done. Include information from more than one study. What are the new hypotheses being tested? Do all the new studies show similar results? How convinced are other scientists in the field? What additional work needs to be done?

Finally, relate back to your introduction. Does the new work help resolve the scientific questions? Does the new work help resolve the social/ economic/ ethical questions? You may include your own perspective here (a couple of sentences).

Paper 2: Personal Freedom and Social Responsibility: What is the Trade-off?

The question is: “Should non-addictive recreational drugs such as marijuana, Salvia divinorum, or Psilocybin be legal?”  I will either assign you a drug to study, or allow you to choose one. You will work with other students in the class (possibly in groups of 9), and research the science, economics, and social implications of the drug in question. Each person will turn in their own paper, on the aspect you researched, but you will present your argument as a group, in class on Nov 18. Devoting approximately one hour of class to each drug, we will draw numbers randomly to see which group presents first. At the end, we can take a class vote to which side of the argument was most convincing. Note, you will be asked to exchange e-mail addresses with the other students in your group, or come up with some alternative way of communicating before class, so you can share information, and devise a strategy for your presentation.

Office hours: Mon, Wed 11:15 am - 12:00, Fri 9:05am – 10:00am, or by appointment. E-mail is preferable to a static-filled cell phone message that I have to listen to twice in order to catch your name and phone number!

My goal is to make this class interesting and relevant.  As an educated person, you are in a position to affect the future of our society and our planet. It’s a big responsibility! I hope your experience at

CSU Stanislaus helps you make intelligent decisions, and fosters a lifelong love of learning.