General Zoology
Official Description[edit]
General Zoology (04-114/115)
Introduction to animal life including life histories, structure, functions and reproduction.
Class Structure[edit]
The course is split into two separate parts: Lecture (114) and Lab (115). Each section receives its own grade, however, Lecture is three credit hours and Lab is only one credit hour. Lecture is always taught by Dr. Kondrashov, at least during the Fall and Spring trimesters. Lab is either taught by Dr. Kondrashov or Dr. Easterla in the Fall and Spring trimesters.
Lecture[edit]
Information taught:
- Kingdom Protista
- Different Phyla
- Different Subphyla, etc.
- Kingdom Animalia
- Phyla ranging from microorganisms to humungous mammals
Dr. Kondrashov expects his students to know most of the names of the different phyla, subphyla, and sometimes classes, subclasses, and specific genus species. Dr. Kondrashov loves mussels so pay close attention to this section of lecture. Whenever he repeats something and gets really excited about some piece of information, expect it on the test. He also expects you to know all the body systems he lectures and how it connects from animals higher and lower in the evolutionary tree. He is big on comparison when it comes to different animals.
Grade structure:
- Four tests - 100 points each
- Comprehensive Final - 200 points
- Total - 600 points
- A: 100-90
- B: 89-80
- C: 79-70
- D: 69-60
- F: 59-0
There are no rounding of grades and no extra credit
Frequently there are pop quizzes and the points earned from the pop quizzes are extra points added to your total grade. When Dr. Kondrashov walks sneakily into the lecture hall with his laptop kind of shielded away from the class and looking stuffed with pieces of paper, expect a pop quiz and then look through your notes.
Lab[edit]
Lab is completely different from Lecture.
Lab meets once a week for two hours. There are two instructors for Zoology Lab: Dr. Kondrashov and Dr. Easterla (pronounced Dr. Easter lee).
Students in lab start looking through microscopes at different protists and then move on to microscopic animals. After learning how to use microscopes and actually using them, students move onto dissections ranging from a small Ascaris or earthworm (or both!), to a mollusk, to the fetal pig which is a three week project. Every week Dr. Easterla puts out about 15-20 demos of animals preserved on slides or in glass jars. Students are expected to know these demos and slides and dissections. Students have found it helpful to go to the lab after hours and take pictures and notes on the demos.
Grade Structure:
- Midterm Exam - 100 points
- Non-cumulative Final Exam - 100 points
- Total - 200 points
Same grading scale as lecture
There are slight differences between Dr. Kondrashov and Dr. Easterla:
- Dr. Kondrashov
- -lectures about the lab and then works with students
- -has pop quizzes much like lecture
- -uses terminology almost exactly like lecture
- Dr. Easterla
- -lets lab assistants help students
- -has no extra points
- -uses very archaic terminology
- -talks about him and his discoveries (did you know that there is a bug named after him, eh)
Why take this class?[edit]
This class is a lot of work, but at the same time a lot of fun. If you are a person who likes biology much more than computer science, then I recommend taking this course. Unless of course, you are from the class after the Voyagers... then you have no choice, but if you never had choice, you'll never miss not having choice, right? Even if General Biology seemed like crap for you, don't give up on General Zoology. It's more specifc than General Biology and the instructor is very competent. Also, if you want to take higher level biology courses, General Zoology is probably the prerequisite. Take Comparative Anatomy for example, the only pre req is General Zoology; both classes are a bunch of fun and interesting to the max times 12.
