Grading:

Point distribution. Points are distributed among the various components of the course according to the following scheme:

Course grades will not be assigned according to a grading curve. Rather, grades will be based upon the following scale. You are encouraged to do your best and score as high on the scale as you can. If everyone in the course earns an “A”, that will be a huge success for all of us! Please note that you are not in competition with one another for grades. Work with one another to learn the course material.

Extra Credit. You can earn up to a total of 20 points extra credit if you attend two biology seminars on the Claremont Colleges campus and write a one-page summary of each seminar. Each seminar summary is worth 10 points. A maximum of two seminar summaries can be submitted for extra credit. To receive full credit your summary must include the following: a statement of the hypothesis the investigator was addressing, a brief description of the methods used to address that hypothesis, and a summary of the results obtained. Please turn these summaries in to your professor no later than 2 weeks following a seminar.

There will be no make-up exams. If you do not take an hour exam or quiz, you will receive a grade of zero for that exam or quiz. You may be excused from an exam if you are hospitalized or if there has been a death in your immediate family. All students must take the final exam. Those who are excused from the regularly scheduled final exam, due to hospitalization or a death in their family, will take a written or oral make-up exam at the discretion of the course instructors.

Research Paper on Enzyme Project I. You and your lab partner will be asked to formulate an original hypothesis and experimental design based on the succinate dehydrogenase assay. Your project proposal outline will be due the week before beginning the work and must include at least five cited, primary references from the scientific literature that are relevant to your project. During Labs I-C you will experimentally test your hypothesis. Two weeks after completion of the work you will submit a complete Research Paper, including an Introduction, based on the proposal you submitted, a Materials & Methods section, specifying how your methods differed from those in the lab manual, a Results section, a Discussion section, an Acknowledgments section, a Literature Cited section, and an Abstract. Read and follow the instructions in “Writing a Scientific Paper”, section iii of the lab manual, for guidelines on your research report.

Oral Report on Photosynthesis: Project II. You and your lab partner will be asked to formulate an original hypothesis and experimental design for Project II, Photosynthesis: Measurement of Oxygen Production. Your written project proposal (See lab schedule for due date) must include at least six cited, primary references. During Lab II-B you will experimentally test your hypothesis and then present your results and conclusions to your lab section in an oral presentation the following week. See Section ii of your lab manual on how to prepare your oral presentation. You cannot be absent on the day of your oral report.

Please Note: You must hand in any written work within five calendar days (weekend included) of the designated deadline or you will not pass Bio 41C. Late papers will lose 20% of the total available points for each day they are late beyond the designated deadline.

Lab Notebook You are required to keep a laboratory notebook, which will be collected when each of the three lab projects are due. Please see page 1 of the Bio 41C lab manual for a description of what you are asked to include in your lab notebook.

Course participation This grade is assigned at the end of the course and is based on your participation in class and lab discussions and on your conduct and attendance. You are required to attend and participate in laboratory discussions scheduled during your usual lab session. If the discussion is on a paper from the primary literature, you may be required to write a brief summary of the paper, which will be due at the beginning of lab.