WEEK 3: EVOLUTION

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 3 activities, you will be able to:

1. explain the significance of Charles Darwin’s work on evolution.
2. describe the evidence for evolution.
3. identify six common misconceptions about evolution.

How You’ll Get There

There are four activities for Week 3. They are:

1. Read sections 11.3 Evidence of Evolution (p. 258-266) and 11.5 Common Misconceptions about Evolution (p.266-269), in Chapter 11 in OpenStax Concepts of Biology at OpenStax. The reading provides you with some background information about evolution (60 min. read).
2. After completing the reading, watch the video, “Galapagos Finch Evolution” (16.08 min.).
3. Take a quiz based on the video. The quiz has 15 questions; six require written responses and nine are multiple choice. Some of the multiple choice questions involve reading a graph or analyzing an image so they will take some time for you to answer. You will have one hour to complete the quiz.  After one hour, the quiz will end; questions will appear one at a time and once you submit your answer, you cannot go back to change it.
4. Last week, you reviewed the syllabus and posted about topics that interest you. You are now being asked to submit a topic for your final project. Once you have selected a topic, email it to me and I will approve it. Each student will be doing a different topic, so email me as soon as you have an idea.  Once your topic is approved, post in the discussion the topic you’ve selected and why you chose it.

WEEK 4: EVOLUTION AT WORK

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 4 activities, you will be able to:

1. determine the impact of evolution for modern humans and other organisms.

How You’ll Get There

There are three activities for Week 4. They are:

1. Watch the video, “The Evolution of Skin Color” (18.07 min.).
2. Watch the video, “Selection for Tuskless Elephants.” (6.39 min.).
3. Complete the assignment, Week 4 Evolution of Skin Color and Tuskless Elephants. The assignment is based on the two videos.  It might be helpful to read the questions before watching the videos and have the assignment open so you can answer the questions as you watch the videos. The assignment will take you approximately two hours to complete. You will need to submit your answers by typing them in the Week 4 assignment MS word document after each question.  Please do not delete the questions.  To submit, you will upload your completed assignment as a PDF document.  It is the only format Brightspace will allow you to upload.

WEEK 5: ECOLOGY

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 5 activities, you will be able to:

1. analyze the flow energy between organisms in an ecosystem
2. describe the features of terrestrial and aquatic biomes
3. explain the importance of biodiversity

How You’ll Get There

There are four activities for Week 5. They are:

1. Read section 20.1, Energy Flow Through Ecosystems (p.529-537) in Chapter 20; and section 21.1 Importance of Biodiversity (p. 568-575) in Chapter 21 (90 min. read).
2. Review the PowerPoint, Biomes and Ecosystems. Two versions of the PowerPoint are posted. One version is a PowerPoint file and the other is a PDF.  The review of the Powerpoint should take you 50 minutes.
3. Complete the Week 5 quiz based on the reading and the Powerpoint.  The quiz is ten questions and you will be given 15 minutes to do it. Go into the week 5 module to access the quiz. 
4. Complete the Week 5 assignment, Biomes and Biodiversity. The assignment consists of six questions that you will need to do some research on to write your answers. Go into the week 5 module to access the assignment.  You can also find the assignment by selecting Assignments on the blue navigation bar at the top of the page.

WEEK 6: HUMAN IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 6 activities, you will be able to:

1. identify key threats to biodiversity.
2. define: climate change.
3. explain factors that contribute to climate change.
4. determine your role in reducing carbon consumption.

How You’ll Get There

There are five activities for Week 6. They are:

1. Read section 21.2 Threats to Biodiversity (p. 575-583); and section 21.3 Preserving Biodiversity (p. 582-589) in Chapter 21 (90 min. read).
2. Watch the video, “Climate Change 101 with Bill Nye“ (4.09 min.).
3. Watch the video, “Climate 101: Cause & Effect“ (2.49 min.).
4. Complete the quiz based on the above readings and videos. The quiz consists of 10 multiple choice questions based the readings and videos. You will have 15 minutes to complete the quiz.
5. Complete the assignment “Calculating my carbon footprint”.
6. In addition to the content of Week 6, you will also be working on your final project by submitting the Sources for Final Project Worksheet. 

WEEK 7: WATER: THE CASE OF FLINT, MICHIGAN

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 7 activities, you will be able to:

1. describe the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
2. identify what went wrong in Flint and who is responsible for the Flint water crisis.

How You’ll Get There

There are five activities for Week 7.  They are:

1. Read: Lead-Laced Water in Flint: A Step-by-Step Look at the Makings of a Crisis (45-60 min. read).
2. Watch the video, “Flint’s Deadly Water” (54.47 min.).
3. Watch the 2019 video, “Five years later Flint is still dealing with water Crisis” (6.09 min.).
4. Complete the quiz for Week 7 based on the reading and videos mentioned in 1-3.  The quiz is fifteen questions (12 multiple choice; 2 true or false and one short answer) and you will be given 120 minutes to do it. 
5.  Post in the discussion forum. Your post, reading your colleague’s posts and writing a response will take you 60 minutes to complete. We will use the discussion grading rubric we’ve used in the past.

WEEK 8: FOOD & FOOD QUALITY

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 8 activities, you will be able to:

1. determine the effects of ingesting pesticides and metals that are found in food.
2. assess the quality of food and make choices about food consumption.

How You’ll Get There

Last week, we looked at a specific case study about drinking water contamination.  This week, we will look at food contamination.

There are six activities for Week 8. They are:

1. Watch the video, “Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fats” (9:07min.).
2. Read “The Center for Ecogenetics & Environmental Health Fast Facts About Health Risks of Pesticides in Food.” (10 min. read).
3. Read “EWG’s 2024 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides Produce“ (15 min. read).
4. Read “Arsenic is in rice. Should you worry?” (20 min. read).
5. Read “The Smart Seafood Buying Guide” (10 min. read).
6. Complete the assignment, set up as a Brightspace quiz based on the above readings and video. It will take you about 2 hours to do. Please make sure your answers are based on the Week 8 readings and videos. I suggest you stay away from googling the answers while you are completing the assignment. You will end up including information about things like vitamin and mineral content of food which is not related to the questions and the answers that will earn you full credit.

In addition to working on the Week 8 content, you will also need to complete your “Gathering Information for your Final Project Worksheet”.

WEEK 9: DIET & WELLNESS

Student Learning Objectives

This week is all about you!  The objectives for this week are:

1. Analyze the food you eat over a two-day period.
2. Complete a two-day nutrition log.
3. Based on the results of your nutrition log, determine your health eating score.
4. Assess your risk for cancer, heart disease and pre-diabetes.

How You’ll Get There

There are two activities for Week 9. They are:

1. Review the video, “Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats” (9.07 min.).
2. Complete the Week 9 assignment, Diet Analysis and Risk Assessment.  The assignment involves recording your food intake over two days.  Based on your data, you will then use online tools and website information to assess your risk for pre-diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and cancer. 

WEEK 10: THE BRAIN & THE OPIOID CRISIS

Student Learning Objectives

After completing the Week 10 case study, you will be able to: 

1. identify reputable sources of information providing statistics about the opioid crisis
2. explain how addiction to opioids begins
3. differentiate two treatments for opioid addiction, OAT and MAT 

How You’ll Get There

There is one activity for Week 10, a case study.  The case study is divided into three parts. For each part, there is a story for you to read.   You are then asked to answer questions that will require you to research information from web resources.

WEEK 11: VACCINES

Student Learning Objectives

At the end of our Week 11 activities, you will be able to:

1. explain how vaccines work.
2. distinguish the four types of vaccines.
3. explain the significance of smallpox to human history and its eradication as a meaningful world health success.
4. Explain the factors involved in the successful eradication of smallpox.
5. Justify whether the recent issues presented to the public about the negative impact of vaccines outweigh the benefits of preventing the spread of disease.

How You’ll Get There

There are nine activities. They are:  

1. Watch the video, “How vaccines work” (2:28 min.).
2. Read about the HHS Webpage on different types of vaccines. (7 min. read).
3. Watch the video, “How we conquered the deadly smallpox virus – Simona Zompi explaining the history of smallpox  (4:33 min.).
4. Watch the video, “The eradication of smallpox: Invisible Killers” (7:29 min.).
5. Read the following three sections from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website on Smallpox and Bioterrrorism (15-20 min. read):
   • “The Threat”
   • “Preparedness”
   • “Detection and Response: Smallpox”
6. Read the following sections of Bugs, drugs and smoke: stories from public health: Box 1.4 Herd Immunity on page 9; Read Box 1.6 on page 17;  Read the section titled “the smallpox legacy” p. 20-21. A PDF of chapter 1 can be found in the Week 11 module. (10 min. read)
7. Read: Vaccine Myths Debunked (15 min. read)
8. Complete the assignment on vaccines.  It is set up as a test.
9. Post in the discussion forum and respond to one other student. 

WEEK 12: THE HUMAN MICROBIOME

Student Learning Objectives

By the end of our Week 12 activities, you will be able to: 

1. define the term human microbiome.
2. explain the significance of the human microbiome to human health.
3. justify the use of microbiome therapies to treat disease.

How You’ll Get There

There are five activities for Week 12. They are:

1. Read: The Microbiome (10 min. read).
2. Read: Fast Facts About the Human Microbiome  (10 min. read).
3. Read the following sections about C.diff from the CDC website:  About C.diff; Preventing C. diff; After C.diff: Caring for Yourself and Others and the fact sheets C. diff- Am I at Risk? and Progression of C. diff infection. (20 min. read).
4. Watch the video: “Fecal Microbiota transplants:  (7.22 min.). If you would like to read a transcript of the video, you can access the PDF transcript file here.
5. Complete the assignment on the microbiome.  It is set up as a test.

You will also need to submit your completed final project this week.