THE HISTORY OF LIFE    

GLY-1101, Summer A, 2009

Tu/Th 9:30-12:15, Room PC 432

SYLLABUS 

 

Course Objectives – Life was not always as it is today with humans, green landscapes and flowers, and warm and cold seas full of bony fish. This course provides an understanding of the interacting biological, geological, and environmental principles and processes that have shaped life.

Course Description – We apply basic biological and geological principles of evolution, ecology, plate tectonics and stratigraphy; and review the evolutionary history of major groups of plants and invertebrate and vertebrate animals, and major events such as the origin of Earth and life, mass extinctions, and the Ice Age. The first third of the course covers general principles of geologic time, evolution and continental drift. In the second third, we focus on marine life, and the last third concerns the origin and history of life on land.

 

COURSE SCHEDULE

There is a 15-minute break between the two lectures (or between an exam and lecture).  

Note about exam times:  In keeping with university policy, accommodations for students who wish to observe their religious holidays will try to be made. Students should make these requests known at the beginning of the semester.

Click here to see questions from previous exams given by Dr. Collins for this course.

 

Textbook – Ausich, William I., and Lane, N. Gary, 1999, Life of the Past: Prentice Hall, 4^th ed. 

Instructor – Dr. Laurel Collins, Department of Earth Sciences and Department of Biological Sciences

Email  (preferred)	collinsl@fiu.edu
Telephone	(305) 348-1732
Office hours	F 8:00 - 11:00, PC 435

If you need help but a course or work conflict prevents this during the regular office hours, please email (preferable) or call to make an appointment.

Course Policies – The course is based mainly on the lectures. The topics of the lectures follow the same order of topics covered in the textbook, although lectures include material not covered in the textbook, and the textbook includes material not covered in the lectures.  If you rely on the textbook without attending lectures, you will not receive all of the information that is covered on the exams.

        You are expected to maintain high standards of academic honesty. Any student found in violation of these standards will earn an automatic F and be reported to the Deans Office, no exceptions made. In accordance with FIU's policy on academic honesty, as set forth in Section 2.44 of the Academic Affairs Policies and Procedures Manual (http://academic.fiu.edu/polman/sec2web.htm#two-forty-four), it is expected that students in GLY 1101 will neither submit the academic work of another as their own, nor provide work they have done for another student to be submitted as that other student's work.

Attendance – Your attendance at lectures is not required, but it is the only way to have a record of the lectures. The lecture slides that can be accessed online are only illustrations of the content of the lectures - the slides do not include most of the text of the lectures, so they cannot be used as substitutes for lectures. It is rare that a student who does not regularly attend the lectures will learn enough to get more than a C-. This includes students who make arrangements for others to take notes for them, because other people's notes are not usually as useful as your own.

Best Way to Study – Your grade depends on how well you learn the material covered by the lectures, and this depends to a great extent on how well you take notes and use the textbook for reference. Slides used in the lectures are available from the online syllabus (see URL at top) by clicking on lecture titles in the column Lectures.  Outlines of all the lectures are also available from the online syllabus:  Click on a lecture topic in the column Lecture Outlines, and print the outline to use as a guide to: 1) following the lecture in class, 2) taking notes in class, 3) finding the textbook's explanations of lecture topics, and 4) studying for exams. For additional tips, see How To Study. 

Grades – Exams and (optional) pop quizzes determine your final grade, based on a total of 300 points.

Exams:  Exam times do not change unless university classes are cancelled. The format of the exams is multiple choice. Each exam contributes 100 points, for a total of 300 points for the term. Points for each exam are shown in the Grades column of the Course Schedule (above), listed by the last 4 digits of your Panthersoft ID#. The final exam is not cumulative. 

Quizzes:  Quizzes are for extra credit. They can be given at any point in a lecture, between lectures or after lectures, and can cover past and ongoing lectures. Generally, their format is fill-in-the-blank. A total of 20 extra credit points can be earned during the term, and at the end of the term any extra credit points are added to the total of the exam points, to determine your final score. Points earned for each pop quiz will be shown in the Grades column of the Course Schedule (above), listed by the last 4 digits of your Panthersoft ID#. There are no makeup quizzes.   

Makeup Exams:  If you are scheduled to be away from the classroom for any reason during an exam, you should not take this course. Makeup exams will be given only in extreme circumstances and if you have valid, documentable proof justifying your absence, such as a doctor’s note verifying an illness or a police report for a car accident. University-sponsored events away from campus and trips out of town do not qualify for makeup exams. In such a case, you must contact the professor as soon as possible after missing the exam to be able to take a makeup exam. Makeup exams have a short-essay format.

Final grades: Grades are based on standard percentages of correct answers and total points for the term: