Lecture 1 (5/18/09): Concepts, Principles & Models Oh My!

Lets get straight to the point. Today, Professor S played one of his most important cards early in the lecture when he displayed his "Course Introduction" slide (see image at right). I have highlighted some key words on the slide in red text. If you follow this Blog regularly, I have a hunch that you will see these 3 terms--concepts, principles, and models--again, and again, and again...

If you want to do well in this course, you'll need to start getting comfortable talking about scientific concepts, scientific principles, and scientific models. What do scientists mean when they use these three terms? Let's take them one at a time and look for places in Professor S's lecture where he began addressing each one. First, lets look at "concepts"...

Concepts
From my perspective, there is one key slide we can look to and quickly see a number of concepts that Professor S brought to your attention right on Day 1 . Below left, is a copy of a slide he to which referred a number of different times today (it's available on Angel and you should download it). Although they may be too small to read here, the three largest ovals say "Genes," "Matter," and "Energy." These three words are not just words, they represent three key concepts in this course. In the slide at left, you are actually seeing a few of Professor S's ideas about what having a concept of genes means. For him (and other biologists), the concept of genes involves other terms like "alleles," "DNA," and "chromosomes." Similarly, the concept of matter involves something about "organic materials" and "Materials Cycles." The concept of energy involves something about "Solar Energy" and "Heat Energy." I'm fairly certain that Professor S does not expect you to know everything there is to know about these three concepts on Day 1 of BS110. However, you and I both heard him say today that these three concepts will be very important concepts to learn over the course of the semester. This leads to some things you can do between now and the next lecture:

• Set up some kind of system (e.g., a computer file, a map of your own, a separate folder for each concept, flashcards) to keep track of how each of these 3 concepts--genes, matter, and energy--are discussed in future lectures, in lab, and in your textbook.

• At the conclusion of each lecture, take your lecture notes and add the relevant parts of them to whatever concept tracking system you set up above. What new things did you learn about "genes" today? What new ways to talk about "genes" (or parts of genes) were discussed in class today?

A note of caution: Some of you may already be developing a mild case of 'concept anxiety.' In other words, when Professor S had the slide up today titled "When does genetics matter?," you may have been furiously scribbling down everything that he was writing on the slide in red ink. I too wrote down the things he wrote on that slide, but for a different reason. I wanted to draw your attention in this Blog to some of the words and phrases he wrote down like "genetic drift," "evolution," "natural selection," "gene frequency," "speciation," "adaptation," "population," and "community" for two reasons. First, 'Yes,' these are each concepts too, and each one will likely play an important role in the concept of "genes." Second, 'No,' he does not expect you to know all these concepts already (or, for that matter, by Wednesday)--this is what large parts of this semester are for!

"Time" and "Space" are concepts too!
I want to remind you that besides the concepts of genes, matter, and energy, you also spent a significant amount of time today discussing another important concept in biology: "Scale." In BS110, you need to start developing some ideas about scale(s) over both time and space. I know this sounds sort of science 'fictiony,' but the more you can start thinking about concepts like genes, matter, and energy in terms of the concept of scale (both time and space), the better off you'll be when it comes time for things like quiz and test questions. This leads to something else you can do between now and the next lecture:

• Just like for the other concepts, set up some kind of system to keep track of how scale--both time (i.e., temporal scales) and space (i.e., spatial scales)--is discussed in future lectures and in your textbook.

What about Principles today?
You tell me...Were there any slides titled "principles" today? Did Professor S use this term explicitly in today's lecture? In my observation of today's class, it seemed like we did more with concepts than with principles. I do recall, however, an exchange between Professor S and another student during class in which the "conservation of matter" and things like "order" and "entropy" were briefly discussed. For me, this is scientific principle-talk, but we didn't hear a lot of it today. My guess is that scientific principles are things that future lectures will go into much more detail about...in the meantime, we can at least prepare ourselves to be ready for it when it comes. What do you already know about things like scientific principles? From your previous education, do you know of any scientific laws? More importantly, do you know of any laws or principles that might be relevent to any of the important concepts that Professor S mentioned today in lecture?

And finally...Models
There were a fair number of slides devoted to models today. Well, models are concepts too. And what I saw Professor S doing when he discussed models with you today was to begin to help you build a concept of what he (and other scientists) mean when they use the term "model." So, you looked at a slide with some examples of models...you shared your ideas with Professor S about models...and you looked at 3 quotes about models said by various people. In other words, you were involved in starting to build a shared concept about models with your instructor.

In your homework (using the video clip of the coral reef), Professor S has asked you to pick a pattern, propose a cause for the pattern (i.e., propose a hypothesis), and then to design an (imaginary) test to see if you've identified a possible cause or, to use a judicial term, a probable cause for the pattern. Since we ended class right here, a question to keep in mind for the next lecture is: What are the different relationships between things like models, patterns, causes, hypotheses, and tests?

Looking ahead...
So, you can see that just by dissecting some key moments in the Day 1 lecture, we now have some clear, concrete tasks ahead of us. As of today, I plan on using this Blog to help you track the development of some important concepts in BS110, namely, genes, matter, energy, scale (both temporal and spatial). I will also be looking out for and then tracking discussions about scientific principles and models.

If you have questions or comments about this post, please feel free to use the comment function below. Over the course of the semester (ah, a temporal reference!), I can image that your comments could play a significant role in helping to define and shape what we use this digital space (ah, a spatial reference!) for...