Students will be able to identify and describe the major principles of biology.

Throughout my time as student of biology at Longwood University, I had the opportunity to complete numerous classes that are key to a complete understanding of the subject of biology as a whole. Longwood’s current biology catalog is in the shape of a Rotunda. It has its basic, general biology education courses at the bottom as the foundation.   These courses were integrative biology, introduction to genetics and cell biology, introduction to ecology and evolution, and sophomore seminar. It then has three “pillars” leading up to the top. These pillars stand for the three major principles of biology – cell and molecular, ecology and evolution, and organismal biology. These three pillars are crucial to an understanding of biology as a whole. Without one, the other two cannot exist.

Each biology student is required to enroll in at least one class under each pillar. The class that I chose to take to fulfill my cell and molecular biology requirement was Developmental biology. Developmental biology turned out to be one of my two favorite biology classes that I got to take while at Longwood. This class followed the development of organisms from a single fertilized egg, throughout its lifetime, and to its death. We learned about gene expression, signaling pathways, invertebrate and vertebrate developmental stages, created and tested hypotheses, and created many oral presentations. This class allowed me to better my understanding of genetics and molecular and cellular mechanics that allow life to occur after fertilization. In this class, we completed a project that allowed us to apply the knowledge we learned to an actual experiment. My lab group was able to research tissue regeneration in brown flatworms. We cut a sample of these organisms in the same way each time and observed them over a period of time in order to watch their tissue regeneration. We then took our data and created a poster presentation to communicate this data to other scientists. This project allowed us to practice scientific communication, which is key to a successful career in biology. Because of this opportunity, I now know more about how to create scientific projects in the future. The artifact from this project is linked below.

I chose to enroll in evolution to complete my ecology and evolution requirement. Along with developmental biology, evolution was also one of my favorite classes that I had the opportunity to take while at Longwood. During this class, we were able to learn the processes of evolution. This involved an understanding of the theory of evolution, the way each organism obtains variation, adaptation, the mechanisms of natural selection, etc. We also learned about modern-day issues with society and their acceptance of evolution. Throughout the class, we discussed different areas and population subgroups that had difficulty accepting evolution. At the end of the semester, I created a poster with my group to address this.   My group contacted six different zoos from around the country and asked them about their stance on evolution – whether they teach about it, what their mission statement is, etc. We analyzed our data and used it to propose an idea to close the gap between scientific knowledge and jargon and the rest of the non-scientific community. This classed reinforced crucial biological knowledge, such as the genetic variation and how organisms respond to their environments. This class allowed me to see the importance of an understanding and acceptance of evolution. It also helped me identify paths that we as the scientific community could take in order to possibly close the gap between the scientific and non-scientific community. The link to this artifact is listed below.

I chose to take comprehensive human anatomy and physiology as my organismal goal requirement. This course was an in-depth look into the physiological functioning of the human body. In this course, we covered topics such as the integumentary, skeletal, muscular, nervous, and endocrine systems. We studied how they worked and different features that each system and component of these systems had. Then, as a group, we identified one of these systems and conducted an experiment on it. My group chose to investigate facial muscles and their changes with different emotions. This course allowed me to see how intense and complex that the human body truly is. It also showed me how physics is integrated with the entire body, as the bones, muscles, and nerves all function based on physical principles.

Flatworm Poster

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nfyKSJK3ZHuqCwkKNeZiuyDgEz_wPMCM/view?usp=sharing

Evolution Poster

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Md_hG7X3JGHfz3i22Ub4eQPeANZSstmo/view?usp=sharing