First-Year Seminar (101-6-22)
Topic
Biological Thought & Action
Instructors
William Leonard
847/491-4839
1810 Hinman Ave., Room #A55, EV Campus
Prof. William Leonard is an Abraham Harris Professor and the Director of the Global Health Studies Program at Northwestern University. He is interested in diverse aspects of nutritional health, energy metabolism, and child growth and development among human populations around the world.
Michele M McDonough
847/491-5061
Hogan Hall, Room - 2-100
Michele McDonough is the Assistant Chair in the Department of Molecular Biosciences in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Professor McDonough joined the NU faculty in 2008 and has been teaching with SPS for the last five years. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Cornell University and earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry while studying signaling pathways regulating cytoskeleton rearrangements at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Meeting Info
University Hall 101: Tues, Thurs 4:20PM - 5:40PM
Overview of class
Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social ramifications. We will seek to understand science as a social pursuit: the work of human beings with individual, disciplinary, and cultural differences, and requiring tremendous investments in training and equipment. Does it matter that participation in science is more accessible to some than to others? How do biases, assumptions, uncertainty, and error manifest in scientific work? What is the history of scientific values such as objectivity and reproducibility? The course will conclude by investigating current topics of public debate
Registration Requirements
Freshman/Sophomore Only
Evaluation Method
Attendance and Participation (25%) Three short essays (45% total) and a final Paper/Project (30%) Short essays 2-5 pages Final Paper: 8-10 pages
Class Materials (Required)
Readings will be provided as PDFs on canvas or can be purchased as a course packet.
Class Materials (Suggested)
Booth, Wayne, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. 2008. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. 2021. They Say/ I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. 5th edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Class Attributes
WCAS First-Year Seminar
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for First Year & Sophomore only
Add Consent: Department Consent Required
Drop Consent: Department Consent Required