The College is reforming its biology core curriculum to enhance student learning of the process of biology, give introductory students authentic research experience, present modem, integrative biology to majors, and enhance opportunities for interdisciplinary study. Biology's rapid expansion challenges educators, who must teach clear biological principles amidst an overwhelming and ever-growing amount of information. A promising approach to this challenge is to use research-based learning to move away from teaching biology as a collection of facts and toward teaching biology as it is actually practiced. Meanwhile, the growth of integrative research fields suggests that advances in biology are becoming increasingly dependent on integration across sub-disciplines. We propose an introductory curriculum that combines extensive research-based study within an integrative framework. With support to enhance equipment, technology, and instruction, we will introduce three new semester-long courses. The first is a small enrollment introductory course that will apply the model of having students pose questions, design experiments, analyze data, and communicate scientific information, by focusing on integrative topics that will often be related to individual faculty members' research. The second and third courses are a two-semester sequence focused on organismal problem solving. Each course applies a research-based style to develop explanations for organismal function, mainly at the levels of cells and molecules (semester 1), or mainly at the levels of individuals, populations, and communities (semester 2). Multi-week laboratories will synthesize information across levels of biological organization from molecules to ecosystems, with concepts, model systems, and data developed in the first semester being revisited and applied in the second. We expect this new core curriculum to develop substantially the level of interest and scientific preparation of our students.
