Life Sciences, Medicine, and Health is a survey course that introduces students to five topics in life sciences, medicine, and health. Students use an approach that integrates reading, writing, and thinking to learn key strategies needed to interpret a variety of written and graphic material. This course introduces the core skills which learners need to master the basic competencies of science. The format of the course encourages both individual study, as well as cooperative learning.
Students are encouraged to express their knowledge orally through group discussion and teamwork.
Students analyze the relationships among various organisms and their environments, and identify the relationships among organisms within populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes. Students to understand the role of the cell and cellular processes and the scientific principles and processes involved in biological evolution. Students and use a biological classification system to analyse the degree of relatedness among various species. Students describe the levels of
organization of living things from cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, populations, and communities to ecosystems. Students explain the molecular basis of heredity, in viruses and living things, including DNA replication and protein synthesis. Students explain how genotypic and phenotypic variation can result in adaptations that influence an organism’s success in an environment. Students compare the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in terms of energy flow, reactants, and products. During the course, students participate in discussions with instructors about readings by authors Edward O. Wilson, Paul Colinvaux, Loren Eiseley, Hippocrates, Charles Darwin, and Lynn Margulis with an instructor.