BIO108
Plants and Society
Insert Plant picture Here
Text: Plants and Society by Estelle Levetin and Karen McMahon, 3rd ed., Wm. C. Brown Publishers. Lab texts will be provided the first day of Lab.
Objective of this Course:
To prevent plant blindness!
What is Plant Blindness?
- The inability to see or notice plants in one's environment.
- The inability to recognize the importance of plants on earth and in human affairs.
- The inability to appreciate the aesthetic and unique biological features (really cool stuff) of plants.
- The misguided, anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals, and thus, unworthy of consideration.
Class Philosophy:
The Plant Kingdom rocks!
Course Description:
Official MCCCD Course Description.
Plants and Society explores the world of plants. You will learn how plants live, grow, reproduce, about the diversity of plants in the world, and their relevance to human life. You will learn why plants are the basis of almost all life on earth, and explore how plants and plant products are used by humans for food, shelter, clothing, medicine, and other purposes. The evolution and domestication of various economically important crops will also be discussed.
Prerequisites: None
Credits: 4 credits. You will receive a single overall grade for both lecture and lab.
Course Goals:
By the end of the semester, students should:
- Describe and/or use the Scientific Method.
- Trace the selected history of international plant use and distribution by humans from earliest records to the present.
- Describe and demonstrate the general principles of chemistry including elements atoms, molecules, bonds, and energy, utilizing a globally popular plant.
- Describe and demonstrate cellular respiration and energy production in plants including aerobic and anaerobic pathways.
- Describe and demonstrate the process of photosynthesis and relate it to cellular respiration.
- Describe the taxonomy of vascular and other selected plants.
- Classify selected plants according to their global economic and aesthetic values.
- Contrast and compare the uses of selected plants in primitive and advanced societies.
- Describe the anatomy of several typical vascular plants including roots, stems, and leaves.
- Describe sexual plant reproduction in species representing the four major groups of plants.
- Describe asexual reproduction in selected species.
- Describe the growth and development of selected vascular plants with emphasis on hormones, growth, and plant movement.
- Describe osmotic principles and water movement in plants and relate this to the need for global water conservation.
- Describe mineral use and deposition by plants, emphasizing international species of particular importance.
- Describe, both by specified countries and globally, the energy yield of selected types of crop plants and compare the economic projections of plant yield with the growth of the human population.
- Describe genetics in plants, including the use of the genetic code and current applications of genetic engineering, including international opinion.
