Seminars in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB)

Two of the goals of Biol 515 are to promote active, student-driven learning and to expose students to the process by which scientific research is conducted, rather than just the facts that are the product of scientific research. At most universities, undergraduates' exposure to on-going research is very limited. Dr. Hentschel hopes to change that, at least at SDSU!

On almost every Monday from 4:00-5:00pm in LS 101, the SDSU Biology Department invites a speaker to describe his/her research in the general field of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Topics range from microbes to large mammals and from molecular to global processes. Some seminars might even focus on marine invertebrates! This is an opportunity for students to hear (and meet!) leading biologists from around the country. On all Mondays, class will be dismissed at 3:55pm so students can attend that day's EEB Seminar.

The Assignment for Biol 515 Students:

Students are expected to attend at least 3 of the EEB Seminars. Students are free to choose exactly which seminars they attend. If a seminar is cancelled (on rare occasions this can happen at the last minute), the student must attend another seminar (Don't wait until the last 3 wk of the semester to attend a seminar!). Dr. Hentschel will share the updated schedule of the EEB Seminars at appropriate times throughout the semester.

For each seminar attended, the student must submit a 2-paragraph, 1-page document.

1) The first paragraph (< 300 words) must be a brief summary of the seminar (general topic, questions & hypotheses addressed, methods used, main conclusions, etc).

2) In the second paragraph, the student will describe his/her original idea(s) concerning similar research that could be done involving a marine invertebrate or group of marine invertebrates (If a marine invertebrate is the focus of the speaker’s research, students must describe how similar research could be done on a different invertebrate taxon). Original ideas must be explained in some depth (i.e, several sentences).

Each write-up will be worth 10 pts. To be graded, a write-up must be submitted to Dr. Hentschel as a MS Word Document or Text file via the Digital Drop Box feature of the Blackboard site (in the “Tools” menu). The file should be named with the student’s last name followed by an underscore, the seminar speaker’s last name, and the file extension “.doc” or “.txt” (e.g., a student named John Smith who was submitting a write-up of an EEB Seminar presented by Dr. James Estes would name their file smith_estes.doc). Each write up must be sent to the Digital Drop Box no later than 5:00pm on the Friday after the particular seminar. Write-ups will be graded according to the Scoring Rubric for Written Paragraphs (Appendix II), with each paragraph earning up to 5 pts. Students are welcome to attend more than 3 EEB Seminars and submit more than 3 write-ups during the semester; the highest 3 scores will count towards a student’s overall course grade.