BIOL 320
Principles of Botany
Fall 2014
Dyer
Principles of Botany
Fall 2014
BIOL 320 (4 credit hours)
Instructor: Dr. Andrew Dyer
Phone: 641-3443
Office: SBDG 101E
email: andyd@usca.edu
Lecture/Lab: Tues-Thurs 1:40-4:20 Sciences 107
Office hours: before class or by appointment
Course text
1. A Photographic Atlas of Botany, 6th ed.
2. The Botany Coloring Book
Rushforth et al.
P. Young
Prerequisites: ABIO 122
Course description
This course is an overview of plant structure and function with an emphasis on physiological processes.
Objectives
• To acquaint the student with knowledge of the basic plant structures, evolutionary relationships between plant
groups, adaptive traits in plants, and important physiological processes.
• To improve the students’ ability to use dichotomous keys to organize information and identify organisms.
• To improve the student’s ability to link structure to function.
• To improve the students’ ability to extrapolate to from small to larger scales.
Competencies
By the end of this course, the student will demonstrate increased ability to discuss and describe:
• basic plant structures and functions.
• energy in the environment.
• plant metabolism and reproduction.
• the soil-plant-air continuum.
• some genetics and applied genetics in plants.
• the role of the plant in ecosystems.
Laboratory description
This course is structured as a combined lecture/lab and meets twice a week for extended periods. Students will
often work in lab groups and lab exercises may span more than one class meeting. Lecture and lab material will be
intermixed.
Exam dates
Lecture exams will be given on or about Sept 18, Oct 9, Nov 11.
The final exam will be given Tuesday, Dec 9, 2:00pm
Exams will be combinations of short answer/essay questions and will focus on conceptual understanding, but will
also include definitions of terms and facts about plants.
Absences
Try to avoid them. It will be hard to understand what is going on if you have missed the previous session. If there
are emergency reasons for missing a day, contact Dr. Dyer unless absolutely unavoidable in which case there better
be documentation of the reason. However, regardless of the reason for the missed class, quizzes cannot be made
up. There are 28 lecture/lab meetings; if you miss more than 8 of them (>30%), you will automatically fail the
class.
Points (approximate and subject to change)
Quizzes (16)
Exams (4)
Lab and other assignments
~80
~400
~320
~800 pts
There are no make-up quizzes. Tests can only be made up with advance notice of the absence.
Late assignments lose 10% per day, but they continue to have value, so turn them in even if they are late.
Grades are calculated on a 10 pt scale: A>90%, B>80%, C>70%.
When I grade subjective assignments (e.g., essays and reports), I judge them according to how much effort I think
went into them. Spelling, grammar, organization, and thoughtfulness count as does the ability to tie together
different concepts from class. I will make an effort to return graded assignments as quickly as possible and always
with comments. I welcome your comments in return and you are always invited to discuss your answers with me.
I will be using Blackboard for posting grades this semester. In addition, I may require some writing assignments to
be turned in using anti-plagiarism software.
Additional comments
1. If you are having difficulty with any aspect of this course, please come see me as soon as possible. If my
regular office hours conflict with your schedule, you can make an appointment to see me at a more convenient time.
2. If you have a physical, psychological, and/or learning disability that might affect your performance in this
class, please contact the Office of Disability Services, B&E 134, (803) 643-6816 as soon as possible. The
Disabilities Services Office will determine appropriate accommodations based on medical documentation.
3. You will be expected to endorse the following Honor Pledge on every exam:
On my honor as a University of South Carolina Aiken student, I have neither given nor received any
unauthorized aid in this assignment/examination. To the best of my knowledge, I am not in violation
of academic honesty.
Infractions of this honor pledge are taken very seriously. Any evidence of plagiarism will result in a formal report
to the Vice Chancellor. Make sure you understand ALL of the forms of plagiarism.
COMPUTER USE AND EMAIL
You must have a functioning email address. I prefer written assignments to be turned in as Word documents via
email. Laboratory reports often require the use of a computer. You must be able to log on to the USCA computer
system in order to accomplish many laboratory exercises.
All official class communications, including class announcements, are made to USCA email accounts. Check your
USCA email account on a regular basis and use this account for communication with the instructor. In order to
protect the privacy of the student, the instructor will not reply to emails sent from non-USCA accounts (e.g.,
Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.). Also, because of federal law, no grades or scores can be communicated by phone or email;
you must come to the instructor’s office.
CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR
It is the instructor’s right to remove from the classroom any student who disrupts or disturbs the proceeding of the
class. Disruption of the class includes but is not limited to the use of any portable electronic devices, including cell
phones, MP3 players, and iPods. unless prior approval has been given to a student or unless required for the
course. In extreme cases the faculty member can request assistance from University Police. If the student who has
been ejected causes similar disturbances in subsequent meetings of the class, he/she may be denied admittance to
the class for the remainder of the semester and assigned a grade of F.
A short but growing note about PLAGIARISM
Any and all work turned in for credit is assumed to be your work and the product of your brain and your brain
alone. Every word in every sentence is your work. Work can be considered plagiarism even if it is not exact
copying. My advice is “don’t make me look” because when I get suspicious enough to look, I usually find. For
your information, it is plagiarism….
*if you fail to cite a reference after giving a factual statement;
*if you fail to use quotation marks (and I do not allow quoting in science papers);
*if you rephrase someone else’s work or merely change a few words;
*if you have the same order and form of sentences as the source material;
*if you consistently mis-cite or mis-use cites in a way that suggests intentional avoidance of detection;
*if you and a lab partner work together and turn in work that is substantially the same.
If a “draft” of a paper has any of the above problems, it is still plagiarism.
If I cannot tell who produced a piece of work, no credit will be assigned.
If the references given are not accessible to the instructor, no credit will be given. Therefore, if you use obscure or
unusual references, it is your responsibility to turn in a copy with the assignment or make it available to me.
Be aware that what was allowed in high school does not necessarily apply at USCA. If there is anything about the
above statements that are not clear, don’t wait until an assignment is due to find out more.
Many students believe that having no more than three consecutive words from an original source will fool the
electronic programs that detect plagiarism. Perhaps, but I read the papers too and I compare the papers given in the
reference list to the student’s work. If I find any of the problems listed above, there will be no first warning. There
is no latitude given because there is no excuse for plagiarism.
Therefore, if I find any work that is too similar to other work, either in the class or out of the class, please
understand that I have no options but to follow the rules as outlined in the USCA Faculty Manual. The student(s)
involved will be summoned to my office, the situation will be explained, there will be no options for “redoing” the
work, a zero will be given to the assignment, and a formal letter will be sent to the student and to the Executive
Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs documenting the situation. As with all academic issues, there is an avenue
for appeal (detailed in the USCA Student Handbook), but it is not with me.