Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Hello! My name is Keri, and I’m teaching this section of BI112. It’s a bit early for all the details, but some general course information is provided below. Hopefully this will be helpful as you figure out your winter class schedule. When we get closer to the start of the term, I’ll post a syllabus and schedule. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me keri.mesirow@pcc.edu

BI112 is designed to prepare you for anatomy and physiology by helping you build a foundation of biological concepts and vocabulary. These are biology basics that you will be expected to know before taking any other biology courses.  If you take this course, you will learn the essentials of cell biology- the chemistry of cells, cell structure and function, how cells harness energy, and how they divide and pass on hereditary information.

Attendance, Class Meetings, and Workload

This section of BI112 is a hybrid course. Part of your coursework will be done on campus while the rest will be done remotely and asynchronously, on your own schedule at home.

We meet on campus once a week for 5 hours, and attendance is required. Two hours of that time is devoted to recitation in the classroom, and 3 hours is devoted to lab exercises.

For lecture, you will be given a reading schedule (1 to 2 chapters per week). Your textbook is your most valuable source material, but in addition, there will be a narrated powerpoint lecture, a study guide, and optional video links posted on D2L for each chapter of the textbook. When we meet face-to-face for recitation each week, we will use that time to answer questions you have about the material, to do exercises and group work, and to take exams.

For lab, we will meet once a week. There are no lab make-ups. If you miss 3 or more labs, you will have an automatic F for the entire course, regardless of your lecture or lab points. All sections of BI112 follow this policy.

The workload for this course includes a weekly lab (postlab assignment and lab quiz) and textbook readings for lecture. For a 5-credit course, you should expect to spend about 20 to 25 hours a week- the 5 hours we spend together each week plus 15- 20 hours at home reading/studying.

Grading Structure

The course is worth a total of 1000 points, 700 points from lecture and 300 from lab. A more detailed breakdown of points will be provided later.

Course Materials

Textbook: We use Campbell Biology in Focus 3^rd edition. You can use the 2^nd edition or the global/international edition of Biology in Focus, if you prefer. Another option for a textbook is the open resource text at openstax.org (Biology 2e). Please note, however, that the course materials are based on Biology in Focus. Modified Mastering Biology is not required, but some students like to use it on their own.

Lab Manual: Briggs, N., Cawley, K., Brown-Istvan, L., Fergusson-Kolmes, L., Neps, S., Schaerer, B., Galante, L., and Simon, B.  (2018).  Cell biology for the health sciences lab manual (Fall 2019).  Portland, OR: PCC Print Center. You can either buy this at the bookstore, or you can download the free pdf version and print it yourself. However, you must have a paper copy of the lab manual the first week.