This upper level laboratory-based course moves through the body systems of vertebrate organisms covering species from some of the major vertebrate groups. The course covers a broad range of organisms for skeletal anatomy and for the rest of the systems (muscular, nervous, cardiovascular, digestive, urogenital and reproductive) using sharks, frogs, rats, and cats to allow students to compare the evolutionary changes in these systems through the tree of vertebrate life. This course encourages effective time management, teamwork, and new study skills and techniques which will be heavily relevant to work in graduate school, medical school, and veterinary school.

For this course I served as a grader for two summer sessions. This field-based course takes students into local areas to learn and practice ecological systems and field techniques. Students learn to identify plant and animal species and use common methods to collect and analyze ecological data while experiencing the trials that come along with field work. The students complete the course with designing and carrying out an independent ecological experiment and presented the results to the class.

Throughout this lab and field-based course for which I served as a grader, the students learn the fundamental of animal behavior including foraging, predator avoidance, territoriality, and mate choice. Students learn ways to investigate and experimentally test and analyze these topics. In addition to grading assignments for this course, I assisted in evaluating topic choice and final presentations for projects. These projects are developed by the students to study an area of animal behavior in an evolutionary context.

This laboratory-based course in conjunction with a lecture component covers physiology from the mammalian (mostly human) perspective. Laboratory topics covered include but are not limited to gross anatomy of the brain nervous system, human reflex physiology, skeletal muscle physiology, endocrine gland function and anatomy, nervous tissue histology, human cardiovascular physiology (blood pressure and pulse determination), respiratory physiology, and cardiovascular physiology. The students also write up a lab report based on one of the labs completed in the semester. These reports require students to complete primary literature searches on their subject and complete statistical analyses on the data they collected.

This introductory laboratory-based course covers general concepts in ecology and evolution and allows for hands-on experiential learning to master those concepts. Topics covered over the semester include genetic and morphological diversity, population changes over time and using computer simulation models, and human impacts on the environment by measuring carbon footprints. During this course students also practice writing a paper on differences in plant growth using a biologically relevant experimental treatment of their choosing.

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