Natural Science 1307
Animal Life
Spring 2002

Textbook: Animal Diversity (Second Edition) Cleveland P. Hickman, Larry Roberts and Allan Larson McGraw-Hill.  2000. ISBN: 0-07-012200-8 Lab Manual: General Zoology Laboratory Manual (5th Edition) Stephen A. Miller ISBN:0-07-243559-3 Class time: 9:25 Tuesday/Thursday Laboratory: 1:30 Tuesday/ Thursday					Instructor: Dr. M. A. Clark McFadden 211B Campus extension 4896 Office Hours E-mail clarkm@txwes.edu WebCT: Log In
Goals	Lecture Schedule	Lab Schedule	WebCT WebCT Help	WhoZoo	Article Reviews	Exams and Grading

This course has two goals: the first is to foster "animal appreciation," that is to make students familiar with the broad range of animal diversity and survival strategies found in representative animals. The second is to foster "science appreciation" by engaging students with science literature and methodology.

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WebCT: Online course activities

Messages and discussion for the class will be hosted by the university's WebCT servers.

LOGGING IN: During the first class week you will be given a user name and password for WebCT access. Your User Name and your initial password will probably consist of your last name, the first initial of your first name and the last four digits of your social security number. The format will look like this: ClarkM1234. Note that the first letter of your last name and the initial from your first name are both capitalized, and that there are no spaces or other punctuation. All login information is case-sensitive.

CHANGING OR LOSING YOUR PASSWORD: When you first log in, you will be asked to enter an E-mail address for a password reassignment. DO IT! You will then be given the option to change your password to something other than your initial password. It is not necessary to change your password, but if you do, DO NOT FORGET IT. Nobody but you knows what it is, including the WebCT webmasters! However, just in case you DO forget your password, you will be E-mailed a new one to the E-mail address when you first logged in.

WebCT ASSIGNMENTS: Your first class assignment will be to log into the WebCT, to post a response to the welcome message on the WebCT Bulletin Board and to send me a WebCT E-mail message in response. Credit for completing this assignment will be given only during the first full week of class. Periodically, you will also be asked to participate in an online discussion by reading and responding to a question about on article about animals. Your response must be posted within one week of the time that the article and question are posted. I will also post informational messages on the WebCT Discussion board, so you should check for messages daily. You can also keep track of your course grades there.

During both lecture and lab, we will be studying principles of animal diversity and adaptation, using selected invertebrates and vertebrates as models that demonstrate these principles. In pursuing these topics, your text should be regarded as an important source reference, but not the only reference. There are a number of excellent web sites that discuss animal-related topics, and the Web Links for Animal Diversity, which are keyed to your text chapters, will identify some of these resources. As you find others, you should post them to the WebCT. In your posting, you should provide a brief discussion of the content of the web site as well as a URL.

Animal Life Laboratories

The laboratory is an important part of this course, since this is the time when you will have the opportunity to actually meet and work with some of the animals discussed in the lecture. Click here to see the laboratory schedule. The laboratory period runs for a full two hours, so be sure your schedule is arranged to attend the full laboratory period. On days scheduled for zoo field trips, wear comfortable outdoor clothes and good walking shoes.

A major class project will be to create an species information page for the WhoZoo web project, which provides public information about various animals housed at the Fort Worth Zoo. Web pages for about 200 animals have been prepared by students in previous classes. Each student in this class will select an animal not currently represented at WhoZoo, and will prepare a species account to be published at WhoZoo. Students who complete the project not only become informed about their animals, but also with the acquisition and organization of information and the preparation of HTML documents. Displaying your work on the web site will not only allow your classmates to see what you have been doing, but will make the information available to others as a public service. Your completed page may be updated from time to time, but it will carry your name as the primary page author. WhoZoo currently is getting about 25,000 hits and 1600 visitors/day -- mostly from students in public schools in the United States, but we also get requests from many other countries. See the Animal Life Project Guidelines and the WhoZoo Template and Instructions for Using the WhoZoo Template for details. The WhoZoo species accounts are worth 10% of your final grade. To view the WhoZoo site, and to see pages prepared by other students, click on the icon below:

WhoZoo

Each student will write a report based on a recent article from the professional or popular science literature. Each report will include some background information the specific animal discussed in the article, a summary of the article and your comments. An excellent source for background information on various animals is the Web Links for Animal Diversity. See the Animal Life Project Guidelines for further information on preparation of this report. You will prepare your report for publication as a web paper, which will also be published on the WhoZoo web site. This report is worth 10% of your final grade.

Each week, there will be a 20-minute quiz on the information discussed the previous week. Quizzes will be given at the beginning of the class period on Tuesdays and must be completed within 20 minutes. Plan to arrive on time to get the full amount of time allotted for the quiz. Material from this syllabus will be included in your first weekly quiz. At the end of the semester there will be a comprehensive final exam.

You are encouraged to make studying a social activity -- you will have some time during the first week of class to meet your classmates and to form study groups. Your group may meet either "live" or in one of the WebCT chat areas.

GRADING: Various course activities contribute to your course grade as follows:

• Weekly Quizzes: 40 %
• Final exam: 10%
• WebCT Postings: 10%
• Article Report: 10%
• WhoZoo Project: 10%
• Laboratory Grade: 20%

Texas Wesleyan University has a number of policies related to class attendance, safety, learning disabilities, and intellectual honesty. These policies are in force for all classes at Wesleyan and you are expected to be familiar with them. Click here for a brief description of these policies.