Learning Goals

The department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology identified two sets of learning goals for the major. One set focuses on science process skills (also referred to as core competencies). These are goals that advance student鈥檚 critical and scientific thinking abilities. The second set encompasses a broad range of topics important for understanding the scope and real-world significance of ecology and evolutionary biology.
 
Each set of learning goals focuses on four central goals and each of the central goals connect to a larger number of more specific goals. These goals define the scope and focus of undergraduate education in EBIO.

Core Competencies

  • Design an experiment to test the predictioons of hypotheses

  • Develop different problem-solving strategies

  • Identify, describe and estimate relevant parameters

  • Confidently collect, organize and store data

  • Confidently use R (or another computational environment) to manipulate, visualize and analyze data

  • Develop lab and/or field skills

  • Use and interpret models, data or simulations to make predictions

  • Participate in department, college, local or regional  scientific communities

  • Seek out the assistance of expert individuals

  • Effectively collaborate with others towards shared goals

  • Make and solidify interpersonal connections that stem from preparedness and participation in the sociology of science

  • Distinguish between claims based on scientific evidence and other types of claims

  • Judge and critique the reliability, sufficiency, and/or authenticity of information

  • Identify social influences on scientific pursuits or acceptance of science

  • Correctly interpret graphical, tabular, and text-based description of data

  • Construct logical-deductive arguments based on evidence

  • Communicate the applications of biology for social, ethical and environmental issues

  • Effectively argue the relevance of biology to diverse audiences

  • Demonstrate awareness of the ways context, audience, and purpose drive content, presentation, and stylistic choices

Scope and Real-World Significance

  • Explain how evolution happens (heritable variation, struggle for existence, natural selection, and drift)

  • Use phylogeny and fossils for inferring the history of life

  • Recognize taxa (species, genera, families, etc.) based on traits

  • Know a single taxon (or small set of taxa) well

  • Evaluate the human impact on the ecology and evolution of humans and other species

  • Describe the flow of nutrients (e.g. N, C and P) in an ecosystem

  • Predict temperature effects and global warming on populations, communities, ecosystems and/or landscapes

  • Diagram energy flow through food webs

  • Model or illustrate how life history traits, competition, predation, parasitism and niche effects can influence the abundance and distribution of species

  • Use data and theory to illustrate the influence of diversity on productivity and productivity on diversity

  • Show how organization and function of organisms emerges as a consequence of development

  • Illustrate how ancestry and mutation influence structure and function across different scales (from molecules to whole organisms)

  • Relate the biochemical and biophysical properties of biological structures to the functional properties

  • Describe the structure and function of molecules, cells, tissue, organs, individuals, and/or communities

  • Explain how genetic information is stored, processed, transmitted,  expressed and manipulated