Results for BIO 44Y: Core Plant Biology

The goal of this course is to develop an understanding of how to conduct biological research, using a topic in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Plant Biology as a practical example. This includes the complete scientific process: assessing background literature, generating testable hypotheses, learning techniques for field- and lab-based data collection, analyzing data using appropriate statistical methods, and finally writing and sharing results. To build these skills, this course will focus on communities of microorganisms living in floral nectar at Stanford's nearby Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Students, working in teams, will develop novel research hypotheses and execute the necessary experiments and measurements to test these hypotheses. The capstone of the course will be an oral defense of students' findings, as well as a research paper in the style of a peer-reviewed journal article. Labs will be completed both on campus and at Jasper Ridge. Lab fee. Information about this class is available at http://bio44.stanford.edu. Satisfies WIM in Biology.

Laboratory and field projects provide working familiarity with the concepts, organisms, and techniques of plant and evolutionary biology, and ecology. Emphasis is on hands-on experimentation in the marine environment, analysis of data, and written and oral presentation of the experiments. Equivalent to BIO 44Y. Corequisite: BIOHOPK 43. Satisfies WIM in Biology.