Courses within the Botany curriculum will address goals and objectives at the appropriate level through measureable student learning outcomes developed by course instructors.?Upon completing the 1000-3000 level Life Sciences courses and additional upper-level courses required for the Botany major, students completing the B.S. in Botany will be expected to meet the following learning goals and objectives:?
GOAL 1: Students will be expected to remember, comprehend, apply, analyze, and synthesize the following core concepts in botany:
- Evolution.
- Biodiversity.
- Structure and function.
- Information flow, exchange, and storage.
- Pathways and transformations of energy and matter.
- Systems.
GOAL 2: Students will develop the ability to apply the process of science.
- Understand defining characteristics of the process of science.
- Practice the skills of the scientific method.
- Engage in research projects.
GOAL 3: Students will be able to reason quantitatively.
- Understand common quantitative approaches in biology.
- Apply quantitative skills to biological problems.
- Interpret and act on quantitative data from a variety of sources.
- Understand the role of uncertainty in science.
GOAL 4: Students will be able to use modeling and simulation.
- Understand how models and simulations describe living systems.
- Evaluate the advantages and limitations of reductionist and systems approaches, which recognize the spatiotemporal complexities of the natural world.
- Understand the variety and major differences in available models and their structure, including stochastic versus deterministic models and analytical versus simulation modeling.?
GOAL 5: Students will be able to communicate and collaborate within and outside of biology.
- Understand the distinguishing features of different forms of scientific communication.
- Communicate concepts through peer interactions and collaboration.
- Communicate science through formal and informal written, visual, and oral methods.
- Tap into the interdisciplinary nature of science.
GOAL 6: Students should understand the relationship between science and society.
- Evaluate the impact of science on society.
- Evaluate the ethical implications of science.
- Explore how science is applied in a social context.