Course description: A laboratory course correlated with Biol 224, which addresses phylogenetic relationships of the major Animal taxa with emphasis upon systems which have evolved to maintain organismal and population homeostasis.

Manual: We have instituted an approach which provides you with a laboratory manual online.  Rather than print a lab manual, we are providing it in an electronic version that you can download and peruse at your leisure.  We have several reasons for doing things this way.  Several of the exercises are under construction, and electronic distribution gives us more flexibility to modify and change the exercises during the semester.  Another reason for this method of distribution is to involve you in the use of an increasingly important set of tools in science, namely computers and computer networking (the internet in this case). We welcome you to the course and hope you enjoy it.  Student response to the electronic manual has been quite positive.  We would appreciate any feedback you might have concerning the course, and especially the electronic manual. 

Make sure you bring a copy of the lab for the week with you .  DO NOT WAIT until the day before or the day of the lab to print a lab. Access the lab material by opening the webpage for online materials in the tentative schedule below.

Merely type this (http://bioweb.wku.edu/faculty/lienesch/Bio225.html) in the address box near the top of the screen in the Netscape (Mozilla, Internet Explorer) program to be found on all the computers in the labs on campus that are run by Microcomputing Support Services.  You may also get these labs on your own computer if you have an Internet connection and can run a graphical browser.  To print the lab, choose Print from the File menu. 

Preparation for Lab:  You must read the lab manual before coming to class each week.  Reading the lab beforehand will allow you to spend your time in lab focusing on the dissections or results of the experiments instead of trying to figure out how to do the procedures.  Reading the manual before lab will also be necessary for the weekly quiz (see below).
You also must bring your lab print out with you to lab to use as a guide as you perform the exercises.

Lab Attendance: Attendance of the laboratory session is mandatory.  If you cannot attend your regularly scheduled lab, you must attend one of the other labs.  The lab materials are only available for one week so the lab must be made up during the week in which you could not attend our regular meeting.  To make up a lab, send an e-mail to me and the instructor whose lab you wish to attend asking for permission to switch labs for the week.  Only in rare cases will the other instructor deny you permission to attend, but they do reserve that right.   By sending the e-mail to both of us, it ensures that I know you plan to make up the material and gives the other instructor a heads up that they need extra materials for that week. 

Instructors: Fall 2008

    Peter Zervas           Bio 225-002        T  2:20 pm - 4:20 pm
    Miller Jarrell             Bio 225-001        T 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
    Peter Zervas            Bio 225-003        W 12:40 pm - 02:40 pm
    Shannon Trimboli    Bio 225-004        W 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
    Miller Jarrell              Bio 225-005        R 2:20 pm - 04:20 pm

Tentative Schedule
Week of	Exercise	Laboratory Link
08-25-08		No Lab
09-01-08	1	Introduction and Porifera
09-08-08	2	Cnidaria and Platyhelminthes
09-15-08	3	Protostomes, Mollusca and Annelida
09-22-08	4	Protostome Ecdysozoans - Nematoda and Arthropoda
09-29-08	5	Osmoregulation
10-06-08	6	Arthropod Diversity
10-13-08		MIDTERM EXAM
10-20-08	7	Gas Transport
10-27-08	8	Deuterostome - Echinodermata, Chordate Evolution-
11-03-08	9	Animal Behavior/ Chi-Square
11-10-08	10	Deuterostome Chordata: respiration and digestion
11-17-08	11	Chordata (cont.): circulation and urogenital (no new online material)
11-24-08		Thanksgiving
12-01-08		FINAL EXAM

Last day to drop the lab with a (W), or change from credit to audit 10-14-08

Grading: 

     Weekly Quizzes (100pts): There will be a short, 10-point quiz in the first 5 minutes of each lab.  There are no make-up quizzes.  You will not be allowed to take the quiz and leave.  If you leave beffore the end of the session, your quiz score will be a 0 (zero) for that week.  The quiz will usually contain 5 questions about the previous week’s lab and 5 questions about the lab to be performed that day.  There will be  11 quizzes during the semester; your highest ten scores (100 points max.) will be used in calculating your semester grade.  The format of the quizzes will be mainly multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and short definitions, although short answer question may appear occasionally. 

     Exams (200pts): there will be two exams covering the materials from the first and second halves of the semester.  Each exam will be worth 100 points.  Because of the practical nature of the exams, there will be NO MAKE-UP EXAMS.

Final grades are based on a percentage of the total points (300).

A = 90-100%    B = 80-89.9%    C = 70-79.9%    D = 60-69.9%     F = <60%

Additional Rules:No food or drink will be allowed in the laboratory.
There will be no use of cell phones or pagers in the laboratory.
Disruptive behavior will not be tolerated in the laboratory.

Academic Dishonesty: Students who commit any act of academic dishonesty may receive from the instructor a failing grade in that portion of the course work in which the act is detected or a failing grade in a course without possibility of withdrawal.  The faculty member may also present the case to the Office of the Dean of Student Life for disciplinary sanctions.  A student who believes a faculty member has dealt unfairly with him/her in a course involving academic dishonesty may seek relief through the Student Complaint Procedure. – WKU Student Handbook

Student Disability Services -  In compliance with university policy, students with disabilities who require academic and/or auxiliary accommodations for this course must contact the Office for Student Disability Services in Downing University Center, A-200.   The phone number is 270 745 5004.

Please DO NOT request accommodations directly from the professor or instructor without a letter of accommodation from the Office for Student Disability Services.

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