Biology Track

The goals of the two-semester biology introductory sequence are: (1) to provide an understanding of the unifying themes in modern biology, (2) to introduce the diversity of life at all levels of organization, and (3) to illustrate the methods and modes of scientific inquiry currently used in the biological sciences. During the fall semester (BIOL 101) the focus is on fundamental principles of evolution and genetics, whereas in the spring (BIOL 102) the diversity of life, from cells to organisms, is explored. The fall and spring courses do not have to be taken in sequence but both are pre-requisites for all advanced courses in biology.

 

Corequisites: Must register for lab for BIOL 101.

Course Designation/Attribute: SP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.

The goals of this two-semester course are: (1) to provide an understanding of the unifying themes in modern biology, (2) to introduce the diversity of life at all levels of organization, and (3) to illustrate the methods and modes of scientific inquiry currently used in the biological sciences. During the fall semester (BIOL 101) the focus is on fundamental principles of evolution and genetics, whereas in the spring (BIOL 102) the diversity of life, from cells to organisms, is explored. The two courses do not have to be taken in sequence but both are pre-requisites for all advanced courses in biology. BIOL 102 is offered in 2 sections. Section 2 will focus on opioids as a central theme.

Course Designation/Attribute: SP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered in spring every year

An introduction to mathematical and statistical methods that are most useful to biologists, this course provides skills that are useful in organizing and summarizing data, graphic methods of data presentation, and testing hypotheses based on experimental results. Key mathematical methods for describing biological phenomena are included, along with basic techniques for identifying differences among groups and relationships among variables. This course may be used by biology majors to fulfill part of their mathematics requirement. Alternatively, it may be counted among the required 10 biology courses for the major.

Prerequisites: BIOL 101 and BIOL 102, and one semester of calculus (MATH 120, MATH 124, or BIOL 121 ).

Course Designation/Attribute: FA

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.

This course will provide an applied introduction to bioinformatics, computational biology, and comparative genomics. Students will work in research teams to analyze DNA and RNA sequence data from public databases within a LINUX environment. Teams will research the biology of sequenced organisms, evaluate methodologies, as well as plan and carry out computational analysis to test hypotheses.

FORMERLY MBB 101

Prerequisites: BIOL 101 (or AP Biology)

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year

During Advanced Biostatistics, students will build on the basic statistical skills they gained in Introductory Biostatistics and learn to apply more advanced techniques to real data. Students will also learn to read biostatistical literature, which will build their ability to learn other statistical techniques on their own. Students will learn a variety of techniques that are frequently used by Biology Faculty at Clark University, and so will enhance the skills students have to effectively do research in the department. Students will learn to do these statistics in the statistical computing language R, which has become the standard in the sciences for conducting complex statistical analysis. Students will get the opportunity to analyze data generated in Clark Biology laboratories to reinforce their learning and get valuable hands-on experience doing statistics.

Prerequisites: BIOL 106 OR GEOG 110, or permission of the instructor

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other fall

The Genome Project offers students a unique opportunity to directly apply the bioinformatics and comparative genomics skills acquired during Introduction to Bioinformatics (MBB 101) in the analysis of a novel genome. Each year, students will work collaboratively in small research teams to piece together the entire DNA blueprint of an organism with no existing reference genome. Students will evaluate and apply genome assembly, gene prediction, functional annotation, and variant discovery algorithms to better understand the genome structure, and functional biology of sequenced organisms. Analysis will be conducted within a LINUX environment through the Clark University Supercomputing Cluster.

Prerequisites: BIOL 123 (or MBB 101)

Course Designation/Attribute: POP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring

Provides an overview of ecology as a scientific discipline. The primary emphasis is on efforts to explain and predict the distribution and abundance of organisms, how ecological communities are composed and why they vary in time and space.

Prerequisites: BIOL 101 or BIOL 102 AND Statistics (BIOL 106, ECON 160, PSYC 105GEOG 110, SOC 202, PSCI 107 or  MATH 123) OR Calculus (MATH 120, MATH 124, BIOL 121)

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year

This course will focus on understanding how evolutionary forces affect population diversity from a genetic perspective. We will explore how to differentiate between selection and genetic drift, learn to calculate rates of genetic diversity between and across populations and study the variation in populations as driven by time by studying examples from primary and secondary literature.

Prerequisites: BIOL 105 and BIOL 118

Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall, Bi-annually

This course serves as a guide to exploring and communicating biological data. Data visualization is a key component of understanding experimental data. Introductory Biostatistics provides students with the tools to analyze and answer questions about their data. This course provides students with the knowledge to determine if they are asking the right question or if they need to generate new hypotheses by visualizing data. Students will learn the fundamental components of statistical graphing focusing on the the grammar of graphics outlined in the tidyverse.   

Prerequisites: BIOL 106 or Permission of instructor

Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall annually